If you want to make a table lantern, you can use a wide variety of materials, and more importantly, the simplest ones. From leaves to parchment paper to gingerbread house cutters, you can use everything to create the most beautiful bright decorations for fall, winter and Christmas.
A house made of cardboard – perfect for Christmas
When you think of cardboard, you don't exactly imagine something attractive, right? But think about it: somehow this hard type of paper is also reminiscent of gingerbread. Accordingly, you can use them to make a durable house as a table lantern. If you don't have any molds at home and don't want to buy them, you can also print out our template and use it as a stencil.
- Cookie cutters for a gingerbread house (available as sets)
- cardboard
- Parchment paper (baking paper is also suitable, but a little thicker so the light will be more dim)
- Cutter and suitable base for cutting
- white pen, e.g. B. Chalk markers
- Liquid glue
This is how it's done:
- Place the stencils on the cardboard and trace the outlines. Also add windows and any other openings not included in the stencils.
- Cut out the shapes including windows and other openings. This works with a cutter or box knife on a cutting mat or on a wooden board, but if necessary you can also use scissors.
- Paint the elements: For example, you can create roof tiles on the roof parts. Frame the windows and doors and draw any other patterns.
- Cut parchment to fit the openings and tape in place.
- Using liquid glue (hot glue should also work), glue all the elements together.
- Place the finished house over an LED tea light or drape a string of lights inside.
Printable gingerbread house template.
You can find out how you can make a real gingerbread house here.
Recycle used tea bags for an autumn lantern
Isn't it wonderful when you can use things that you would actually throw away and use them for something else beautiful? Toilet rolls and egg cartons are the classics, but you can also work with used tea bags, really! The instructions are simple enough to let children help.
- 8 tea bags per lantern
- dried flowers and leaves (press between newspaper or kitchen paper and weighed down with books for a few days in advance)
- Wooden sticks or popsicle sticks
- Glue for the wooden sticks
- Napkin glue (or alternatively a mixture of liquid craft glue and water)
- Hot glue
How to press leaves and flowers.
It's so easy to make a table lantern:
- Open the tea bags and remove the tea grounds.
- Spread out the first tea bag paper on a non-stick surface (e.g. silicone mat or baking paper).
- Coat it with the napkin glue and distribute the pressed plant parts.
- Then spread a layer of glue over the plants.
- Place a second tea bag paper exactly over the first, enclosing the flowers and leaves.
- Coat everything again with napkin glue.
- While the first element is drying, make the other four.
- Once the glue has completely dried on all the lantern windows, glue the wooden sticks to their edges to create frames. Allow the glue to dry.
- Use hot glue to glue all four parts together to create the lantern shape.
Make a table lantern from a mason jar with motifs made from leaves
You don't always have to make crafts with paper if nature also offers other suitable materials, especially now in autumn. We specifically mean thesecolorful leaves, from which you can cut out great motifs, just like paper, or individual elements that you can then glue together to create autumn motifs. In the video below you can see how to make a fly agaric as an example. Dry and press the collected leaves in advance.
Use liquid craft glue, which becomes clear when dry, to adhere the designs to the outside of a mason jar of any size. After that you can then use tea lightsor a LED string of lightsplace/drape in the glass.
Colorful idea for children
In a similar way, you can also make small table lanterns with children. Apply napkin glue to a larger area of the glass and place strips of parchment or tissue paper over it. Then move on to the next position. Once you have covered the entire glass, seal the paper with another layer of glue and then let it dry thoroughly.
The lantern is now basically finished. You can also use wire to bend a handle and tie it around the neck of the glass. This is how you transforma simple lanterninto a lantern in no time.
