This Skeleton Chinese Lantern Style Luminary looks great in the light or dark. Make several and string them together for a fun Halloween decoration. Or make several of the luminaries that have been posted in the last week for some variety. Here is one of the other luminaries I posted recently with links to others.
Halloween is a great time to make luminaries! This one is a little more complicated but well worth the effort!
What you will need
- Black cardstock
- Halloween patterned cardstock and other scraps
- Vellum
- liquid glue
- a small battery operated light
- Download File
Paper Selection for the Skeleton Chinese Lantern Style Luminary
I stuck to the standard Halloween colors. The base cardstock needs to be fairly heavy (100 lb. wt. at least). Patterned paper on the top and bottom shapes make it beautiful even in the light. You can make the caps in another pattern or glitter paper looks great and doesn’t clash with the other paper. The vellum needs to be light. I tried black vellum and it didn’t glow well.
Cutting the Skeleton Chinese Lantern Style Luminary
The base has many little cuts and can be hard to take off the mat so be careful. There is a similar lantern in Design Space but it had some folding problems and I had to alter it. Be sure to follow the instructions in the .docx document to make it ready to cut if you use the SVG file.
Vellum can be hard to cut. Make sure it is sealed properly to the mat. Take a scraper and smooth the vellum down flat. Any air pockets will cause the vellum to tear.
Assembling the Ghost Ball Luminary
Start by re-creasing all the folds. Then you want to attach the vellum to the back of the sheletons. Put the glue on the back of the paper so that it doesn’t show through. Make sure that the vellum covers all the gaps in the paper so that it shines properly. Make sure the glue is dry before you continue to assemble the rest of the Skeleton Chinese Lantern Style Luminary.
Start assembling the lantern by folding the base into a tube and glue it together at the side tabs next to the skeletons, Then join the middle sections at the top and bottom together by gluing the triangle shape tabs. Finally glue the small square tabs to hold the top and bottom together. The top doesn’t have these so that the top comes off to add the light. The bottom must be glued precisely so that the cap will fit.
The caps are assembled by folding the tabs on the square over and gluing them to the strip wrapped around it. Glue the bottom cap on to the bottom of the lantern. The top is not glued on to allow you to put in the light. If you want to string the lantern, make little holes through opposite sides of the top cap and the lantern so that they line up.
Finally, glue the shapes on the slanted part of the lantern at the top and the bottom.
And your Skeleton Chinese Lantern Style Luminary is done! Enjoy your Halloween!
Facts About Chinese Lanterns
- Historians believe that the Chinese first began making the now traditional lanterns during the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220).
- The original use of lanterns was primarily as a light source. They were used both indoors and out to provide a shaded light for reading and working.
- Lanterns have become a symbol of national pride in China and are used to decorate homes and public places.
- They eventually became highly ornamental, and a status symbol.
- The Lantern Festival is one of the best days to view Chinese lanterns in action. It is always held on the 15th day of the first Chinese lunar month.