HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED
-
- Wood Veneer Cardstock
- Clear Acrylic Panels (or transparency sheet)
- Frosted Glass Spray Paint
- Glue (I used hot glue and liquid glue)
- Christmas Embellishments
- LED Flickering Candle
- Book Ring
- Electronic cutter (cricut explore or maker, silhouette or other cutter)
- Cut File – Christmas Lantern BA2107 (available for free in my resource library)
HERE’S WHAT YOU DO
STEP 1: DOWNLOAD THE FREE SVG FILE
The first thing you’ll need to do is get the free SVG file you’ll use for this project. I keep all the SVG files I use for the projects I make in my SVG Library. These SVG files work with Cricut and Silhouette machines, as well as many others. This library is open to everyone and is free! You can access the library here. Look for the file called Christmas Lantern BA2107. It will be listed under the Craftmas 2022 Category-Day 7.
STEP 2: CUT THE PIECES FOR THE LANTERN
Open the design in your software program. Keep everything grouped together and resize the design. I resized everything to 18.5″ so the acrylic panels would fit inside the lantern. If you’re using acrylic panels, you can remove the 4 rectangles from the design. If you’re not using acrylic panels, you can cut the 4 rectangles out of a transparency sheet or vellum. Once everything is sized correctly, cut out the pieces with your Cricut or Silhouette. I used Wood Veneer Cardstock for this project.
Once the first piece of cardstock is finished cutting, remove it from the cutting mat. You’ll want to slightly bend the cutting mat and carefully pull off the cardstock.
Remove any inside pieces that didn’t come off with the mat. Repeat until everything has been cut.
STEP 3: ASSEMBLE THE LANTERN
Fold along the perforation lines of all 3 pieces.
Add some glue onto the tabs and attach the two sections together to form a box.
While the glue is drying, you can glue together the smaller piece.
After the sides of the bottom portion are dry, you can glue the top sections together.
Next, we’re going to glue on some acrylic panels. The wood veneer paper I used is pretty flimsy and these panels stiffened the lantern up quite a bit. If you’re using regular cardstock, you can use either transparency sheets or vellum cut to size. You can spray the panels with frosted glass spray paint to make them less transparent.
Add some glue along the edges of the acrylic panels. You can also reach inside the lantern and put a little glue on the trees and mountains.
Carefully, glue the acrylic panel inside the lantern. Once the glue is mostly dry, you can move on to the next panel and then repeat until all 4 panels are glued in place.
Next, you can attach the top piece of the lantern, to the bottom section. I found it was easiest to use hot glue for this step.
You can reach inside the lantern and use your fingers to press the tabs together while the glue is cooling.
STEP 4: ADD EMBELLISHMENTS
To finish the lantern, I glued on some Christmas embellishments and a bow
You can also thread a small book ring through the holes at the top to complete the project.
Use an LED candle to light up the lantern and this project is finished! I found LED candles that are on a timer, so you can set it and forget it. It turns on for 6 hours and then goes off for 18.
Did you enjoy this project? Make sure to pin it so you can find it later!
