January 20, 2011

Chinese New Year Lantern Ideas

I have to give a shout-out to my adoptive blogging friend Cindy who did a fantastic job making Chinese New Year Lanterns out of red envelopes.

You can find detailed instructions here on her blog.

You can find red envelopes at Party City and Pier 1 right now. Construction paper lanterns can be found here on my blog. Josie has even been able to help me with this craft the last two years.

Simple instructions for making paper lanterns out of Styrofoam cups found here on Family Corner.

My favorite lantern is this glass lantern made of recycled glass jars, red tissue paper, stickers and other embellishments.

This craft was featured several years ago on my blog here and I decided it was time to add another one to our collection with Miss Josie's help.

Supplies needed for this craft include:

Empty glass jars (with the labels soaked off)
red tissue paper
scissors
glue
brushes
(glitter, ribbon..etc) for embellishments

Step 1. Gather up some empty glass jars (here's a good excuse to clean out the refrigerator) and let them soak in hot water to remove their labels.

Step 2. Make a simple solution of white glue and water, using equal parts of each. I poured our glue solution in a plastic bowl for Josie.

Step 3. Cut up a bowl full of one-inch squares of red tissue paper (the size isn't that important). You could even tear up your tissue pieces for a more custom look. Set aside your tissue paper.

Step 4. Using a brush, paint the sides of the jar with the glue solution.

Step 5. Paste one layer of red tissue onto the jar.


Step 6. We then covered the tissue with another coat of glue and set the jar aside to dry. We put Josie's jar in front of a fan to speed up the process. It took less than 30 minutes to dry.

Step 7. Decorate your jar with glitter, stickers, gold wire, ribbon or whatever you can find. Josie used LOTS and LOTS of CNY stickers that I picked up from Party City.

I then covered the jar with one more layer of glue to adhere the stickers to the tissue paper and we set the jar back in front of the fan for more dry time.

Happy Crafting!

Happy soon-to-be Chinese New Year!

13 comments:

  1. Happy Chinese New Year! I love all the crafty ideas!

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  2. What a cute idea! It makes me wish that I was back in the classroom teaching first graders! They would have loved this!

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  3. Oh my goodness!! Love the ideas! We're gonna do a couple...have red cups on my table right now.

    We've done a few other CNY crafts this year, too!

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  4. I should get decorating!

    These are super cute!

    Lea
    xo

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  5. As always, all great projects Kim K! Those sticker embellished lanterns are wonderful - I'll have to find out more about this Party City place. I was in China Town today but there were no CNY stickers. Both my daughters have that same Target give a hoot shirt, I had to smile.

    Gung Hai Fat Choy!!

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  6. Thanks for posting about our lantern craft/site. I would love to have new guests and followers!

    I just love the cupcake idea...Tori and I will have to do that one. She loves anything cupcake or having to do with baking right now. We are also going to attempt the good fortune cupcakes for her class next month. Thanks for sharing those! Since this is JJ's year, I have a cute rabbit cake idea that my mom used to make for my brothers and I at Easter. But we are going to change it up a bit for CNY.

    So glad you and Emma had a great time shopping and eating out. I love those times with my kids when I have just one at a time! Emma racked up some neat things.

    It's party central at the Whaley's right now. Tori's birthday party is Saturday, so I am getting things in order. She doesn't realize all that we have planned, so I can't wait to see her excitement as it all unfolds! I am just as bad as the kids when it comes to their parties. (And I know that the feeling is mutual in the Kenward household.)

    We have more snow headed our way tonight...It would be nice to have tomorrow at home for the sake of party preparation! Ha!

    Hugs and thanks again,
    Cindy

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  7. Some adorable ideas...wish I was teaching again, the kids would have enjoyed these so much.(-:

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  8. What a great project! Looks like Josie had a blast! I love projects that recycle what would normally just get tossed out:)

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  9. Happy Chinese New Year!! Love your ideas and Cindy's lantern out of envelopes! Cool!

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  10. Kim, I love that you are always coming up with fun and interactive ideas for the kids. I wish I had a few rugrats too!

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  11. That little girl of yours is as talented as she is beautiful.

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  12. I love, love, love the paper lanterns and jars!

    Did you see this:

    http://karaspartyideas.blogspot.com/2011/01/vitage-valentines-day-party-activity-10.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+KarasPartyIdeas+%28kara%27s+party+ideas%29

    It's totally you!

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  13. oh my gosh...you are amazing! I love all the CNY crafts...they are so cool!

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Thank you for following our adventures. I always enjoy reading your comments. Happy crafting! Happy thrifting! PS. Ignore that "robot" verification. You can ignore/skip that step since I can't seem to remove it from blogger.