Chinese New Year is the perfect time to see lanterns on display and to make your own paper lantern.  The traditional Chinese lantern parades take place on the 15th day after Chinese New Year.

Here is a plan for making a lantern that can be hung on a string or stick, but doesn’t require a candle.  The yellow paper represents a glowing candle.

MATERIAL REQUIRED

1 sheet 11 x 17″ yellow paper

1 sheet 11 x 17″ red paper  (For added effect you could sponge paint, dribble, brush or splash gold paint onto the red paper.)

Child’s scissors  (Straight or – as used here – pinking style.)

String (to hold the lantern up.  Yarn works well.) Or stick.

Tassels or strips of attractive paper that can make paper tassels (A recycled UNICEF card was used in this example.)

Tape

Glue stick

Gold ribbon. (Enough to go around the top and bottom edge of the lantern. (Approximately 26″)

Extra decorative paper to make paper tassels and a handle.

A short piece of gold ribbon to hang a paper tassel.

Hole punch.

METHOD

This method has been written with young children in mind.  Older children can be more independent.  All comments represent what the child does.  An asterix will be in front of tasks done by the adult.

Left: Checking out the shadows on the paper.
Right: Gluing the paper and pressing the seam together.

Making the Yellow Cylinder

* If the paper is larger than 11 x 17″ you can leave the short end of the paper longer.  EG 12 x 17″   However, you will need to cut the yellow paper to a length of 15″.

* Help your child to measure the 15″ mark.

Draw a line at the 15″ mark.

Cut the paper along the line.  If your child is relatively inexperienced cutting on paper, you can give a reminder how to hold the scissors and that the nose needs to hover over the line while cutting.  The ideal way to hold scissors is to use the second finger to guide the scissors and place the third finger in the second hole.

Apply a generous run of glue on the full length  of one of the 11″ edges.

Bring the ends together and place the cylinder on the table.

Press down on the inside to seal the glue together.

Making the Red Lantern

Fold one edge of the long, 17″ side of the red paper to meet the other edge.

Press down the seam.  The folded paper should be taller than the yellow cylinder.

* Draw a line along the edge of the long, open side of the folded paper, one inch from the edge. Help your child to measure and draw lines two inches apart from the folded edge to the drawn line.  (See photograph above.) If your child is capable cutting on the lines, you can draw the lines one inch apart and have your child cut on each line. If your child is older, the lines can be half an inch apart.   This pattern was designed for three year olds who are perfecting the ability to cut on a line.  The cut lines should start at the edge of the fold and end one inch from the open end of the folded paper.

Start cutting along the lines.

* Help your child to stop if it looks like the scissors will snip through the edge of the fold.  If they do, you can tape the paper together on the other side. When your child has finished cutting all of the lines, draw a further set of lines in between each cut.  This will create cut bands that are one inch wide.  Cut these lines for your child.

Open up the cut folds and wrap the cut red paper around the yellow cylinder.  There should be a set of vertical bands going around the cylinder.  (See first photograph above.)

Ask your child to help tape the paper in place so that the amount of yellow paper showing will be covered by your gold ribbon.

Left: A paper tassel is attached to a strip of paper on the lower inside.
Top right: The handle on the lantern. Bottom right:  Attaching the gold ribbon.

* If you have tassels, you can add them to the bottom rim of the lantern or on either side of the lantern.

* If you don’t have tassels, you can create paper tassels using cut paper. In the sample above a hole is punched in the top of two rectangular pieces of cut paper.  The decorated side of the paper is facing outward for both paper tassels.  A gold cord was knotted to the top of the papers, through the hole. The cord is attached to a thin, rectangular piece of paper that is taped on either side of the lower inside portion of the lantern.

Another rectangular piece of paper, with short sections at either end bent under,  is taped to either side of the top inside of the lantern to create a handle.

Have you made a paper lantern at your home? If you have a photo on Twitpic, Flickr, your blog or a public photo page, you could share a link in the comment section below. You can comment about this posting using the comment function below or by visiting the BC Family Facebook page. Your opinion matters so don’t be shy!

Related

If you would like to see a video of how this type of lantern is made, along with further decorative enhancements that take the lantern to a whole different level, check out Martha Stewart’s How To video.

If you’re looking for other paper lantern projects, check out the many examples available online.  The following video shows how you can make a flower lantern from lucky money packets that you might have received during the Chinese New Year holiday. You can also buy them in stores that sell supplies for Chinese holidays.

If cooking up play dough and using somewhat pricey cream of tartar doesn’t appeal to you, here  is an easy, no cook recipe that is used at a local Strong Start classroom.  If your toddlers stomp on it or sneeze on it repeatedly, you can simply throw the play dough out and make some more.  Sure playdough isn’t that expensive, but when you’re a little tike what you really want to do is get your hands into the squishy dough and cut it up.  As your children get a little older and want to use the official Play-Doh creation devices*, that’s when you will want to purchase the real thing.

You can follow this recipe as it is written or cut the portions of ingredients in half.  The dough can be kept fresh for about a week by placing it in a ziplock bag when it is not in use.  As you can see in the photos, here at BC Family we had a bit of a shopping mishap when daddy came home with premade Kool Aid in individual drink packs. (He thought he was buying the crystals.) Let’s just say that it tastes atrocious.   This drink tastes nothing like the Kool Aid you remember from your youth.  It’s so nasty you wouldn’t even serve it to a keen youngster.  As a compromise it replaced the water in the recipe and was topped up with extra boiled water. 

Once the dough is made, let it sit so that it can firm up.  You can place it in the freezer to encourage the process along if you are in a hurry.  Once it starts to solidify, it helps to kneed in some more flour to reduce the stickiness.  Just when you are thinking the whole process is a bust, it will all start to come together.

We used the play dough on cotton placemats rather than placing it directly on the table.  The play dough doesn’t stick to the cotton and clean-up is a breeze.  You can use small cookie cutters, wooden sticks from ice cream parlours or other devices that aren’t too sharp to encourage exploration.  A junior baking kit has fun utensils such as a small rolling pin.

Enjoy!

Recipe

Mix the following ingredients together in a large bowl, in the order listed below.

2 cups of boiling water

1 package of Kool Aid

1 cup of salt

4 tbsp of oil

2 cups of flour (added in gradually)

Optional:  let play dough solidify on a piece of wax paper. If you do not have any wax paper, leave the play dough in the mixing bowl.

* BCFamily.ca is a member of the Amazon Associates Programme

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                                                  Felt pieces laid down by a two year old.

Do felt boards take you back to your early childhood days?  If you have been to a local library lately with your children, grandchildren or students you may have watched the librarian tell a story using a felt board.  These familiar devices have also been used in elementary classrooms for decades and can be found in Strong Start programmes and preschools across British Columbia.  Do you recall how magical it felt, when you were a child, to watch a story unfold as a librarian, teacher or parent slowly added felt characters to a board?

A felt board and related felt pieces also makes for an ideal at-home activity for your child.  Here’s how you can make a board for your home.

1.  Find a container that you will use for your felt pieces.  In the photograph shown below you will see that we used an empty Purdy’s chocolate box.  You can also go to a dollar store and look for clear plastic boxes that are used to hold buttons or small pieces of jewellery.  We liked the chocolate box because it’s easy to close, there were spaces of different shapes and sizes and the felt boards can fit on top of the storage area.

2.  Visit your local craft store, or the storage area of a sewer you know, and find felt in a wide variety colours. Choose felt that has some thickness to it so that it can be handled easily.

3.  Draw out the shapes that you would like to create for your board on a piece of paper.  Cut out your templates.  Using a thin, black felt marker or fine ballpoint pen, trace the shapes onto your felt.  Create multiples of generic shapes such as flowers or circles, but create only one or two shapes of a specific animal, for example.

4.  Cut the felt out using sharp scissors that can cut fine shapes.  Sharp nail scissors are a good option.

5.  Here are some suggestions for outlines of shapes that you can cut out.  You can repeat one shape in different colours.  You can also create shapes in different sizes. For example you can have very small, small, medium and large sized flowers in the same colour of felt.

* flowers
* clouds
* silhouettes of birds flying
* bushes
* trees
* girl with pulled up ponytail running, boy running and baby in profile
* circles
* triangles
* other geometric shapes
* fine strips that could be used as stalks for flowers
* various leaf shapes
* animals from the jungle
* domesticated animals
* farm animals
* butterflies
* hearts

6.  You will also need to create two felt boards that will fit into your storage box. 

* Cut two pieces of thick cardboard. 

* Cut four pieces of felt a little bit bigger than the size of your cardboard.  

* Use a machine or hand stitch the edges around the cardboard to seal it closed. 

* Choose a colour for the felt board that will be in contrast to the felt colours that you used for the pieces.

Two year olds working with the felt board and pieces.

For this type of felt board you are not trying to create pieces for a specific story.  Your child will be able to create his or her own stories using the variety of pieces that you have cut out.

When you show your child how to use the felt boards emphasize that the pieces need to be placed in their compartments and that the clean up process should be thorough so that no pieces go missing.   Very young children – such as toddlers – will find it difficult to categorize the pieces when they place them back in the box.  You will need to reorganize the box from time to time.

If the idea of this project excites you, you will be interested to know that people who have seen these felt boards in use have been enthusiastic about what a wonderful and simple idea it is.  If you decide to make your own felt boards and pieces, we’d love to see a photograph of your project.  This is the perfect project for a parent, older child, grandparent, auntie, uncle or friend to make for the children in their lives and makes an ideal gift.

Related

If you would like to find felt pieces related to a specific story, check out the 3 H craftworks information and link related to how to make a felt board more options.

We’d love to hear from you so don’t be shy! You can comment about this posting using the comment function below or visit us at our Facebook page.