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INVENT!
There are all kinds of ways to make volumes of light. Think Mardi Gras in lantern form with a puppetry bent. Your creative play is a gift to us all. We cannot wait to see what you make! Here are some ideas to get you started. All are battery-operated lights sourced on-line or sometimes at the Dollar store. The ideas here are ordered from easy to challenging. Check out the videos of some amazing lantern parades around the world at the end.
GLOBE LANTERNS
Sometimes craft stores have these, Amazon and Paper Lantern Store always do. These little lights are good for 12" lanterns and smaller. Tap lights are good for the bigger ones. They come in packs, so you should make them with friends! We like them up on a stick for parade. Marshmallow roasting sticks are good for the little ones, 3' bamboo are good for the bigger ones, usually found in garden centers like Home Depot or cut from a yard. Run the stick through the middle and tape to the top and bottom of the metal expander.
Decorate your globe lanterns with colored tissue paper and glue, stickers, markers, make dimensional bits like ears or beaks with construction paper/cardstock and hot glue. There are lots of examples of those in the lantern workshop gallery. Add arms and cut-out hands on roasting sticks and you can have an easy lantern puppet!
ACCORDION LANTERNS
I did these designs that you can download for free, or get some ideas and draw your own. They are nice printed on bright colored card stock (your local print shop can do that). You can glue two sheets together vertically to make a bigger lantern (glue stick works well). They're great nested. The ones pictured here are made with 5 sheets of 8 x 11 color card stock. They go together with scotch tape. Tape them to a stick with a flashlight at the bottom or put a piece of wire at the top and hang from a string with a tiny light on the end of a stick.
The Lismore Lantern Parade, Lismore, Austrailia.
Accordion lanterns tutorial slide show:
You can see where you want to cut and where you don't.
LITTLE ANGELS & WINGED THINGS
Print, color, cut out and tape together these little angels and tape the light and the lantern to a stick for parading! They would also be nice on sturdier paper with more cut-outs. Use this as a pattern idea! I made different heads and robes. Draw your own or you're welcome to mine. I made a bigger paper-cut angel lantern kit that might give you some ideas, too.
CARDBOARD BOX LANTERNS
Here are some examples and a video tutorial for illuminated dioramas and box lanterns. They are lit with a variety of light sources. "3 LED puck lights are good, like the kind made for under cabinets. It is fun for parade lanterns to be carried up above your head. Run a stick through the box and secure with strong tape or make a cardboard receiver attached to the back that the stick slides into or tie a string to the box and to the stick. Nice sticks are at garden centers.
Print Making or Coloring in Cardboard Boxes
This is a linocut in a cardboard box with a light on a string. Drawings with magic marker work great, too! Cut windows in a box, draw and color to that size on copy paper, tape the drawings to the inside of the box, add a light and hang it off of a stick.
Linocut Print in Box Lantern
BOTTLE LANTERNS
Recycled bottles can make lovely lanterns tricked out with tissue paper or paint. Check out photos of the Jamaica Pond Lantern Parade and this step-by-step tutorial by Handmade Charlotte.
Reed, Sticks, & Tape
If you have seen any UK lantern parades, you have seen all those lovely willow lanterns. It's hard to find willow in the US. But you can find basket reed! I like #8. For framing and straight lines, you can use bamboo, skewers, or marshmallow toasting sticks. It's easy to make attachments with masking tape. For the paper, the nicest is wet-strength tissue. you can use tracing paper, parchment paper, any long fiber paper, or even coffee filters or paper towels. The strongest and nicest translucent paper is "wet strength tissue", another UK thing. You can find it in beauty supply stores in little sheets, or big sheets from Amazon. Cover your form just like paper mâché with with glue mixed with water or wheat paste, just minimize the overlaps. When it's dry, you can paint it with watered down paint or glue on colored tissue paper. Or you could wrap your form in plastic wrap and glue colored tissue to it.
Here is my Frankenfish showing the different coverings. The Eden Project Communities video explains the basics of the UK style. And check out the fantastically tidy style of Gary Carlos (definitely watch his parts 2 and 3 for the paper/paint application.) .
Check out these wire form tutorials from the Mt. Holly Lantern Parade artists!
Lantern puppets are my jam. There are no great instructions for making them. I did make an Emu Lantern Puppet Hat tutorial. In the meantime, check out the Puppeteers' Cooperatives' website and picture adding light.
