Crazicards Crafty Blog

For this weeks tutorial I thought I would try something a little different. So I decided on this little Christmas Tree Tea Light Lantern that you can use as a table decoration.

What you will need

Hougie Board or similar
Cuttlebug or similar
Metal Edge Craft Ruler
Craft Knife or Scissors
Spellbinder Dies
Various ink Pads
Glitter or Crystals
Water Spritzer
Kitchen Towel
Paintbrush and water
                                                     Adhesive Tape or Tape runner
                                                     Scrap Paper and masking tape
                                                     Glue
                                                     Foam Pads
Step1

Trim your plain white card down to 5 1/2" (14cm) x 10 1/4" (26cm)

Take your Hougie Board and place the card down (longest side first) and score at the following points, 2 1/2", 5", 7 1/2" and 10".
Next turn you card and place the shortest side to the top and score at the 1 1/2" line.

Fold and score all the score lines.

Place the scored card to one side, we will finish it later in the tutorial.




Step 2

Next you need to stamp out the images you want to have on your lantern. For this lantern I chose Christmas Trees.

I stamped out 8 trees in total, 4 large and 4 small.

I stamped these trees in Peeled paint Distress Ink.

Once you have stamped out all your images take a damp paint brush and drag out the Distress ink and colour in your images.

Once you have coloured them all in you will need to cut them all out

And then you need to add your glitter or Crystal's and set them to one side to dry.





Step 3

Now for the main body of the lantern. First of all you need to add some interest, for this I took a scrap of paper and tore a cross to make a hill, this was then stuck down over the card and inked above the line.

For this I used Broken China Distressed ink and a Blending Tool to colour in the skyline.

TIP: If you don't want to make your own background you can use pre-printed card stock instead.

Whilst the ink is still damp spritz some water over the top and dab with kitchen towel to make a snowy effect.





Step 4

Once the card is completely dry you now need to cut out your aperture's using the Spellbinder dies, for my lantern I used S4-169 labels but you can use any shape you wish as long as it fits your panels leaving a gap around the edges for the next stage.

Step 5

Now you need to cover the back of the aperture's with vellum or parchment, whichever you have to hand.

Make sure you leave plenty of space round the edges to stick the vellum down securely. For this I used my tape runner

Step 6

Next you will need to cut out sections at the bottom of you panels so that the lantern all fits together nicely once it is stuck together. Your panel should look like mine when you have finished.

TIP: Don't just cut a straight line up the crease, cut a slim triangle as this will give a better finish.

Step 7

Now to put the lantern together. Take some double sided tape and affix it to two of the flaps on the inside and one of the flaps on the outside (the one between the other two).


Take another strip of tape and place it down the thin side panel on the coloured side.


Stick the side panel to the edge first then fold in the two flaps that have the tape on then and stick them together.







Now stick the flap that has no tape on it, down, followed by the last one which does have the tape.





This will finish you lantern base off nice a neatly as shown in my picture.


Step 8

All that is left to do now is decorate your lantern with your stamped images.

Use your tape runner or double sided tape to stick the main tree and for added effect use some foam pads to the smaller tree.

Add your images to all four sides and there you have your finished lantern.

Caution: If your going to use a real tea light please be extremely careful that you don't set the lantern on fire.

To be extra safe use a faux battery operated tea light instead of a real one.

I hope you will enjoyed making your Christmas Lanterns, don't forget you can use any images you like to decorate the sides.

Until next time Happy Crafting xx