Easy Christmas Craft- Paper Project

This little craft is surprisingly rewarding considering how incredibly simple it is. They look beautiful, in my opinion, set gently over the individual lights on a tree, or lights around a garland in a doorframe. Maybe we'll add a picture later.

Paper Lanterns: Remember these from grade school? The trick for making this especially cute for Christmas is to make them fairly small and to use Christmas wrapping paper. Or just use colored construction paper in festive colours. Or, use a cute shopping bag you saved from the 75 percent off sidewalk sale at the local trendy gift shop last summer.

Cut out a rectangle from your paper. A 3 to 5 proportion is what most people do. I kind of like a more elongated shape, but it doesn't matter and I don't measure. I just cut.

Fold your paper in half. Now, start at the folded edge and cut a row of slits in the paper going from the folded edge up about 80 to 90 percent of the way- in other words, stop cutting before you cut your paper into separate strips. You want a nice even row of long strips still connected to the main paper by a band at the top.
The picture at the top should give you some idea- I've cut it and opened it up again, but if you look very closely you can see where some of the cuts were.

The more narrow you make your strips of paper, the more delicate the lantern will appear, but it will also be more flimsy. Experiment a little.

Now bring the long edges of your opened paper together and tape or glue the ends together. Add a handle if you like. In the picture at the bottom of the page you can see the duct tape I used because we just made this one for the blog, and I didn't want glue on my scanner. Being a homeschooling family, you understand, we could not put our hands upon the clear tape or a glue stick in timely manner.

Two other sites have directions and pictures to help you out if, as is entirely likely, these directions made no sense.
Kids Domain
Family Fun