Paper lanterns are a very popular decoration for lots of festive events, particularly Halloween, Christmas, Chinese New Year or Diwali. They are great fun to make and they also make a beautiful decoration for any party or event.
You can make paper lanterns out of ready decorated paper such as craft paper, old magazines. If you would like some instructions for that you can find out How To Make A Paper Lantern here.
But wouldn't it be even more fun to make and decorate your own lanterns? You could draw your own design and colour them in any colour that you like!
Draw on spiders, ghosts or pumpkins for Halloween, rich colourful decorations for Diwali, holly and robins in green and red for Christmas or red and gold which are the traditional colours of Chinese New Year.
Print off your free printable paper lantern template which is in PDF format. You can make two lanterns from one sheet of A4 paper.
Note: You only cut along the dotted lines on this template. The solid lines are fold lines.
Next cut along the central dotted line to separate your two lanterns, and along the dotted lines on the left to separate the handle of the lantern.
You will end up with two pieces for each lantern as shown here.
It is probably easiest to decorate your lantern at this point. You can use pens, pencils, paints crayons or stick decorations on, but remember not to stick them over the dotted lines so that you can still see them.
Next, fold your lantern along the solid line in the centre, so that the dotted lines are visible.
Cut along each dotted, being careful not to cut the whole way along to the edge, otherwise your lantern will fall apart!
Open the lantern up, curve the short ends round to meet each other and stick them together. I find that sticky tape or staples work best to do this.
Finally attatch the handle to one end of your lantern. The finished lantern should look like this, except yours will be much prettier and decorative!
The free printable template can be found below.
Here is your free printable paper lantern template. You can make two lanterns from one sheet of A4 paper.
If you already have some pretty and colourful paper that you would like to make lanterns out of here are the instructions on how to make a paper lantern.