Quick Start Guide for Making UUFCC Imagine & Dream Lanterns
This page is a quick-start guide to help people fabricate simple festival lanterns that are suitable for the outdoor Imagine & Dream Lantern Garden gathering. Refer to the Lantern-Making Challenge and Festival Theme webpages if you want to review what we hope you will achieve and why we ask you to make festival lanterns from inexpensive and safe household waste and materials. One aim is that individuals and groups will have fun exercising their skills in being resourceful and creative; but there are limits - practical issues necessitate some additional constraints on what kinds of lanterns are permitted at the Lantern Garden event. Lanterns may be super simple or extremely elaborate, but all lanterns need to be suitable for viewing by all ages, and consistent with the aims of the festival.
All the essential tools and materials will be be on hand at the Saturday event, but people are welcome to bring cleaned-up single-use jars, bottles or jugs that might make good lanterns. Plastic food-container waste is often especially versatile.
At the lantern-making tables we will provide copies of the printable lantern-making guide for kids that Meg B. and Doug A. developed in 2022. These styles are variations on the instructions below that were created for the first UUFCC Lantern Fest in 2021. Each year we see new possibilities that arise from the creative process going on within the community of participants.
Five Examples of Simple UUFCC Imagine & Dream Lanterns
The instructions that follow the photo describe how the five lanterns were made. The objective here is to illustrate some simple technique and material options, not to ask that lanterns be made this way. Instead, the goal of the activity is to encourage people of all ages to be imaginative, resourceful and thoughtful in the development of their own unique lantern.
EXAMPLE TECHNIQUE 1. JAR COATED WITH TISSUE PAPER
Remove labels from clear plastic (empty) mayo jar (try peeling and scraping after hot water)
Tie both ends of a 16-inch string onto a single rubber band at separate points
Secure the band around the neck of the jar (leaving string as lantern handle)
Optionally decorate the jar surface with light blocking cutouts, leaves, etc.
Gently saturate a strip or two of colored tissue paper with glue:water (1:3) in a saucer
Artfully apply a VERY THIN layer of strips to the surface of lantern and fold over rim
Pat dry and allow to dry upside-down and slightly propped up on one side
EXAMPLE TECHNIQUE 2. JUG OBSCURED BY REPEATING CUTOUT PATTERN
Remove labels from a translucent (empty) 1-gallon plastic milk jug
Tape together two ‘landscape’ sheets of office paper to form a double-wide landscape sheet
Measure and cut enough just enough of the width of the long sheet to wrap around jug
Cut off the top of the jug just below the paper height with scissors
Use a hand paper punch to create two holes 180-deg apart near the top edge of the jug
Secure a wire lantern handle to holes and make it safe by bending the sharp ends down flat
Fold the long sheet in half, then half again and again until as narrow as you want
Cut and/or punch holes in the folded strip like you were making cutouts for a paper snowflake
Fully open the folded strip and wrap pattern around the jug, securing with tape
EXAMPLE TECHNIQUE 3. TEA LIGHT TAPED INSIDE TEXTURED PAPER CYLINDER
Cut printer paper to make a 5-½ in by 4-⅞ in rectangle (later a 5-½ in tall cylinder)
Tape the upper end of the paper cylinder, momentarily using the tea light to set the diameter
Then tape the tea light (flame pointing in) to the lower end of the cylinder as you form it fully
Secure the cylinder by taping the length of the vertical paper seam
Tape on a ribbon as a handle/hanger
Decorate the surface of the cylinder before or after taping (jelly-rolled with bubble wrap in this case)
EXAMPLE TECHNIQUE 4. LUMINARY BAG WITH DRAWING ON COLORED WINDOW
Cut a circular window hole in the small paper bag
Cut a slightly larger circle out of colored transparent plastic
Tape colored window pane on the inside of the bag
Back the window pane with waxed paper or white tissue paper
Tape an tilted half-sheet (4-¼ in wide) of printer paper inside the bag to reflect light toward the colored window
Draw on the window with dark ink
Weight-down bag with a plastic sandwich bag containing sand
EXAMPLE TECHNIQUE 5. LUMINARY BAG WITH REPEATING CUTOUTS
Cut and crease a wax paper sheet so it can line a small white paper bag
Temporarily remove the wax paper
Flatten the bag along the usual folds, except fold both bottom corners’ edges downward
Now fold the bag along two vertical lines into a Z, forming a strip ⅓ as wide as the flat bag
Cut and/or punch holes in the folded strip like you were making cutouts for a paper snowflake
Unfold the perforated bag and tape the wax paper liner inside
Weight-down bag with a plastic sandwich bag containing sand