Easy Watercolor Lanterns 🏮
with supplies you probably have
Hello! Have you ever done a nighttime hike in winter? 🥶It’s a memorable sensory experience, you can’t deny that 😜 Seriously, though, winter is a great time to go on hikes, and it makes the experience a little extra special if you have colorful lanterns to light your way!
These lanterns—idea courtesy of Ginny Yurich’s 1000 Hours Outside book—are fun and easy to make, and the supplies are simple:
Watercolor paper
Watercolor paints
Scissors
Olive oil
Tape, glue, or stapler
String/twine
Battery-operated tealight candles
Plus, they’re pretty!
First, invite your kids to paint a sheet of watercolor paper however they like! (This is a great activity to do with friends.) It looks extra cool when there’s plenty of water in proportion to the pigment. Let dry.
And, yes, you can include toddlers! This activity was a big hit with my friend’s 2-year-old.
After your watercolor paper has dried, cut fringes a couple inches apart and a couple inches deep into the bottom of your paper. If you want to cut shapes into your lantern for the light to peek out, now is probably the best time.
Next, fold your paper into a wide cylinder and staple shut. (You can use tape or glue, but staples are sturdiest if you have them.)
This part is really cool: fold the fringes in on top of each other, and they create the bottom of the lantern! Secure with tape or glue.
And now for the secret ingredient: olive oil! Rub oil on the sides of your lantern to make it semi-translucent. This part is kind of messy, as you would expect, but you can pat dry with a paper towel.
Then poke a hole in each side for holding the string handle. Tie a knot on the inner side of each hole.
Insert a battery-operated tealight—or three!—and you’ve got a really cool glowing lantern!
A similar idea, if you have the tealights anyway, is to make a little town of luminaries simply using computer paper. We shared more details on a guest post last month for Can We Read?
I hope you liked this idea and I would love to see what cool lights you come up with!
Have a lovely weekend.
Warmly,
Hope from Family Scripts
Lantern walks or hikes are absolutely magical. We usually do ours as family in November, when the nights are suddenly longer and darker. We also go on a candlelight hike at state parks in our area, when they're available, which is even more amazing, because it's always a multi-mile trail through the woods, marked by candles, with a ton of people. I highly recommend hiking in winter, especially with a light!