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Make Holiday Lanterns from Cheese Containers

Here’s another easy way to make a lantern that you can light with a tea candle (careful!) or glow stick for festivals such as the Harvest Moon Festival or St. Martin’s Day. This will give you a cylindrical lantern that is easy to decorate in many different ways.

You’ll need: a cheese container — the round, wooden kind used to package Camenbert (If you don’t have one, you can use two 3-inch strips of cardboard, about 1 inch wide, and a cardboard circle of 3 inch diameter.), about 10 x 24 inch piece of wax paper, scissors, glue, pliers, wire, a darning needle, a tealight (or glow stick), and a wooden dowel or stick to carry the lantern.

Instructions:

1. The cheese container, or your cardboard substitute, should consist of a round bottom with a rim, and a top ring. This will be the structural element of the lantern.

2. Decorate the wax paper, which will be the lantern. Some ideas for decorations:

- glue grasses or colorful leaves to one side of the paper.

- color the wax paper with crayons, place a second sheet against the crayon and iron the 2 sheets between layers of newspaper. Pull them apart while the wax is still wet and you’ll have a beautiful decoration.

- color the paper with markers.

- glue beads, sequins or feathers to your creation.

3. Roll the paper into a cylindrical shape, with the decorations on the outside. Glue the cylinder against the rim of the bottom of the cheese container. Glue the top ring of the container against the inside of the top rim of the lantern. Glue together the 2 edges of the paper cylinder.

4. Use glue or wax to attach the tealight on the bottom of the lantern.

5. Use the needle to make 2 holes on opposite edges of the top rim of the lantern. Thread the wire through the holes, and create a loop at the top of the wire.

6. Make a small notch about 2 inches from the top of your stick to fasten the lantern.

7. Light the inside of your lantern with a glow stick or — very carefully — with a tea candle that you light with a long match, and you’re ready to parade your lantern.

Instructions for making lanterns with milk cartons.

Instructions for making Chinese paper lanterns.

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