Easiest way to make a DIY paper lantern for Diwali

A tutorial for DIY paper lantern for Diwali with free printable design template as well. Redefine your festive Diwali decor with these DIY aakash kandils 🙂

Hello guys, I am back from my long hiatus but the universe seems to be telling me to be lazier than ever before. Right when I decide that I am going back to blogging, my SD card adaptor stops working and I can’t transfer my photos, my internet goes down and I have absolutely no connectivity ! But I am going to fight against all the odds and publish this post at any cost 😛 Diwali is round the corner and its time to start preparing our homes with all the festive decors. I love adding DIY touch to every decor element if you know me well and so here goes a tutorial for an easy DIY paper lantern for diwali aka Aakash kandil. If you have seen my last years post for diwali, you would remember seeing a similar paper lantern but the tutorial was on thekeybunch blog – go check that out. But the idea remains the same, design is a bit different so basically you can improvise on the colors and patterns as you like 🙂

[irp posts=”4075″ name=”Colorful Paper Lantern Tutorial”]

Materials required to make DIY paper lantern for diwali

• white cardstock ( you can get then in A4 size and I would prefer it in white color)
• colored paper ( I prefer using colored vellum sheets as the light through them look very colorful compared to normal color paper)
• paper knife ( I use the pen style one, just easier to handle)
• pencil, ruler, eraser, glue

How to make DIY paper lantern for diwali :

Basically the idea is to fold two A4 size card-stocks into halves and then stick together to form a cuboid form. The third card-stock needs to be cut into square shapes to cover the top and bottom of this cuboid. This is the basic layout and based on the changes in dimension and designs/patterns you make on the side panels, you get a different paper lantern each time.

This is the outline of your lantern ( one side panel) and the dotted lines are where you have to fold, normal lines where you have to cut out, shaded areas to be discarded. You have to discard the huge rectangular shaded area which forms the window and thats where you have to do the paper weaving. However, if you would like to give this DIY paper lantern for diwali a try, please feel free to download the template from link given at the end of this post and replicate this lantern 🙂

So I told you that you can vary the lantern design by changing the cut out patterns. Instead of cutting out plain big rectangle, cut out patterns or designs and I am sure you will not stop making these lanterns! I made a circular designed lantern also but I did not happen to click final pictures for a separate post so I will share its cutout pattern here :

And this is how it looked at the end. Just vary the pattern and create different lanterns of your choice. You need two of such side panels and stick them side to side over the folded flaps to form a 3d shape. The top and bottom will be covered with the squares in the second image and you can modify the size of top cover cutout based on the size of light you want to keep inside. The more I type, the more confusing the tutorial becomes so just draw/print the template and then you will get it all right 🙂 For now, lets try the weaved design 🙂

If you are printing the template well and good otherwise, please mark the lengths with a pencil and rules, draw out the template by hand before starting to cut them out. What I generally do is,  finish all the cutting and then go onto folding so that I have a flat piece of paper to work on while cutting out. This lantern has lesser cutting work unlike the diwali paper lanterns I did last year (free template at end of the post) but the design work is a little more.

I chose two shades, red and green to be in the window panel of my lantern and I cut out strips of about one inch in both the shades. At the backside of the panel ( which is going to be the inside of the lantern), I pasted these strips in alternate colors on two adjacent sides of the window. In the picture below, you are seeing one A4 sheet which will have 2 windows. First stick the strips on one side of the window like in below picture and then move on to the adjacent side ( ie in this case strips from top to bottom).

Now  comes the easy part – to weave them together. Search for paper weaving designs on google and you will be loaded with truckloads of design and pattern ideas but I chose the simple alternate weaving – yeah too lazy!

Once it was done, I pasted the loose ends of the vellum strips to the opposite window edge and trimmed off any extra lengths. I have to warn you that when you put your light inside, all the messy work what you did in the inside of the lantern is going to be shown out as a shadow so be a little careful :)I did this for all the four windows and this is how the weaved portion looked liked. (Remember two of such panels for one lantern!)

Stick both the panels side to side and then seal the lids. The top lid has to have a hole so that you can drop in your bulb/light plus it should have a handle/twine to hang up so before you stick the lid, take care of these two.

This is how my final lantern turned out to be. Maybe the weaving could’ve been better but I loved how it looked with a light inside 😉 Charming isn’t it?

You can create your own pattern/design for the windows – maybe even hand-drawn doodle! Your choice and creativity options are infinite. Do share your paper lantern ideas with me so that I can try them as well 🙂 Happy diwali preparations 🙂 Oh by the way if you are interested in more diwali posts, don’t forget to check all of them on my blog 🙂

What fun is it without having to tackle the photo-bomber during my photo shoots 😛 My little munchkin 😉

Download printable template for weaved paper lantern ( red & green lantern)

Download printable template for rectangular diamond pattern lantern (red and yellow)

Download printable template for square cross pattern lantern (blue and green)

xoxo

Angela