This beautiful winter lantern is a great way to add some light to your holiday season! This is the perfect craft to celebrate the winter solstice, Christmas, or just for fun! Make your very own mini Christmas tree luminary with a few supplies and beautiful pieces of nature.
I don’t know about you, but as soon as Halloween is over I start thinking about Christmas! I love decorating my home with joyful decorations that fill our days leading up to Christmas with cheer and light. One great DIY craft that fits this description is a festive lantern! These cute lanterns have little evergreen clippings that resemble adorable mini Christmas trees. They look so beautiful when you add a little flameless light!
Don’t forget to carefully pack it up at the end of the holiday season, so you can enjoy it year after year!
Ready to make one?! Here’s what you’ll need..
Supplies:
- Tissue paper: You can try any color, but we used white.
- Elmers Glue-All– We used this type of crafting glue.
- Balloons– We used these biodegradable balloons.
- Paint brush– We used the foam sponge brushes.
- A container to place your lanterns in when they are drying.
- Flameless tea light
- Water
- Arborvitae clippings- or another type of evergreen that lays flat
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Looking for more homemade winter decorations?! A Simple and Adorable Holiday Wreath for Kids!
Here’s How We Made Our Mini Christmas Tree Lanterns:
Step 1:
Head outside and search for an arborvitae tree! These trees are perfect because the foliage lays flat aren’t prickly. You can try another type of evergreen if you don’t have arborvitae in your area.
Step 2:
Now set up your lantern making station. We set up our area with our supplies and got right to work. For the glue mixture, I used half a bottle of Elmers Glue All and mixed in equal parts water. This doesn’t need to be exact. I have made quite a few of these lanterns and eyeballed the mixture every time.
Step 3:
For the first layer of covering, we just used plain water without glue. Dip the tissue paper right in the water and start a single layer without glue. This will help the balloon peel off the inner layer of tissue paper when you pop it later.
Step 4:
Now add another layer of tissue paper, but this time add the glue mixture on top of the first layer of tissue. I suggest four layers of tissue paper at most, but we stopped at three layers to allow for more light to shine through the lanterns.
After the three layers of tissue paper were applied to the balloon, we added the arborvitae clippings. I added a fresh layer of glue mixture and we then added the clippings one at a time. These are a bit heavy, so we had to press them onto the tissue paper for about 30 seconds to help them stick. Then we added one more layer of the glue mixture over the clippings. They might peel back a little during the drying process, but overall they dried nicely.
Step 5:
Let them dry.
I set my lanterns in a take out container, so they could dry evenly. Once the tops were dried, I took them out of the container to make sure the bottoms of the lanterns were 100% dry before we popped them. Give them about 10-12 hours for them to dry completely.
Step 6:
Pop the balloons. This is always a fun process!
I used a sharp knife to pop the balloons. The balloon popped right out and the lantern looked awesome! You can trim the top part of the lantern or keep the rim a little wild. I think it looks pretty either way, but we trimmed ours a bit.
It looked so beautiful when it was lit with the flameless candles! You can take it on a wintery hike or find a special spot in your home and turn on the light every evening.
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I hope you give this beautiful nature activity a try! I promise, your little nature lovers will love it as much as my boys.
∼Tara
