As Chinese New Year is approaching, I thought it could be fun to make CNY paper lanterns with the kids. It would make a nice kraft activity and keep them busy. With a little bit of help they made creative paper lanterns.
What you need for the paper lantern:
- Coloured rectangular paper preferably red (my toddler prefered pink)
- A ruler
- Scissors
- Glue
- Double sided tape or staple
- Pencils
- Hole Punch Plier
For decorating the lantern you can let your child use his imagination and decorate the lantern with what you have at home. Example of craft supplies that you can use to decorate your paper lantern:
- Glitters
- Washi tape
- Colored paper
- Pompoms
- Sparkling stars
- Pipe Cleaners
- Paint
- Paper edger scissors
Steps on how to build the lantern:
Step 1
Fold the paper in 2 lengthwise and on one side of the paper, draw a horizontal line at about 3 cm from the edge of the paper.
Step 2
Draw vertical lines from the folded edge of the paper to the top horizontal line. Draw the lines about 2 cm apart.
Step 3
Holding the paper folded, cut the paper following the lines you just drew making sure you don’t cut beyond the horizontal line you drew.
Step 4
Unfold the paper and let your creativity flow to decorate the lantern.
You can also add streamers to your lantern by cutting strips of crepe paper and gluing them at the bottom of your lantern. We used paper edger scissors to cut the strips.
Step 5
Fold the decorated lantern to form a tube shape with the paper. Overlap one edge of the paper with the other edge, at about 2 cm. Use double sided tape or staple to fix the edge together.
Step 6
Punch 2 holes at opposite sides to attach the handle using pipe cleaners.
And Voila, you can now hang your Chinese New Year lantern and decorate your house for CNY.
You can make lanterns of different sizes depending on the size of the paper you use.