I love this project sooo much! These lanterns are super versatile, inexpensive, easy, and beautiful! I don’t think it gets much better than that for a project. The end result looks like a dreamy watercolor, lit up. I wish I could say that I had an awesome occasion to use them right away, but alas, I did not. I couldn’t resist throwing together some colorful stems from my yard, and whipping out my old votives (from my wedding, almost 11 yrs ago!) to mix and match with these. I felt like they are the perfect tabletop decoration for your summer parties! Even if you didn’t have any flowers to pair with them, they are beautiful on their own. You could mix and match glass containers for a variety of sizes and shapes (think baby food jars, old vases, different sized jars).

I started out by giving a small amount of glue (mod podge) to each of the kids in their own plastic bowl. This helps so that they all can work at their own pace, without feeling distracted by the other kids. We cut a bunch of scraps out of crepe paper until we felt like we had a fun variety of shapes and colors, and enough for all of us to complete a jar.

From there, it’s pretty easy! Paint a small portion of your jar with the glue and add a piece of the crepe paper to it. Continue to paint and add pieces until you get the look you are going for. Make sure if you are overlapping pieces, to get enough glue under the next piece so that they all stick. This is such a fun and therapeutic process. I loved seeing how each of my kids approached it, and their end result. Once you have added all the pieces that you want, let it dry until it’s slightly tacky. You will want to leave it a little tacky so that the pieces don’t move around while you paint the top coat, but can push pieces flush, if necessary.

Mostly pink for this girl!

You can see here, that Noelle’s pieces aren’t flush with the jar, but that’s totally okay! If your little one has some puckering on their jar, just tack it down with your top coat!

Jared’s creative face is the best (haha)! He is really concentrating! I love that he chose to do his jar all in the green. No wrong way to do this! It’s just important for them to create and express!

I think Sam like cutting and tearing the paper better than actually layering it!

Once the glue is tacky, paint another layer of it over the top of the crepe paper so that it helps to seal it. Then let it dry, and voila! Your magical lantern is finished! At this point, you can add some string or wire around the top rim of the jar if you’d like so that you can hang them from hooks or a tree. I think it would be sooo magical to have a bunch of these hanging at different heights from a tree for a party. I wouldn’t recommend leaving them outside though. I don’t think they would be super weather-proof.

 I LOVE how Jared’s all green lantern turned out!

Okay, so I know my photography and editing skills are still lacking, but aside from that… isn’t this lantern just so dreamy? There are little flecks of I- don’t -know- what that got stuck in there while these were being made, but I still just love how they turned out. Every time I look at them, it puts a smile on my face and inspires me to want to create!

I also have been using them to store some of our art supplies, like markers and paint brushes. You could also throw some silk stems or flowers in them for a fun decoration. I used them to hold some sweet Zinnia’s from my yard, that my daughter picked, and it was the happiest vase I’ve ever seen! If you choose to use it for fresh flowers, be careful when you are filling it with water, so that is doesn’t get the exterior finish too wet.

I hope you have some fun creating some of these lanterns yourselves! Please tag and share your creations! I’d love to see what you come up with!