Sturdy for Common Things

Painted Lanterns + Moonlight Lantern Walk

Lanterns have a way of making any evening magical. Inspired by the Super Blood Moon and Mid-Autumn Moon Festival this past Sunday, the kids painted paper lanterns and went on a moon walk in the evening hours. They enjoyed this art project so much that I thought it would be a good one to share and it’s also a great craft for Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, Diwali, St. Martins Day, a community lantern walk, or just a good excuse to paint and play in the twilight hours.

Materials

• Paper lanterns
• Paint
• Paint brushes
• Yarn or string
• Sticks found outside
• Flameless tea lights, glowsticks, or LED lantern lights

The lanterns require little prep and materials and the results are lovely. Here’s how we made them…

Place the paper lantern on a bowl before painting, which will help stabilize the lantern. This painting process required no assistance for my 5-year-old. She happily painted while singing to herself alone in our little art space. When she finished she found me and I hung her lantern to dry. For my almost 2-year-old, I sat with her and held the lantern and turned it for her after she as need until she decided she was finished. Easy, peasy process art both kids enjoyed.

Hang lanterns to dry for several hours. I hung ours from our ceiling fan chain and them moved them to a clothesline outside.

While waiting for the lanterns to dry, find a few sticks to attach the lanterns to. Once they have fully dried, tie a string of yarn (or thick string or twine) about a yard in length to the end of your found stick and tie the other end of the string to the top of the lantern. Wrap excess string around stick to create desired length. We used flameless tea lights to illuminate the lanterns, but if you have glowsticks or these LED lights on hand I recommend using those. I had an awful time jimmying the tea lights so they would hold in the lanterns. Word to the wise.

I thought I’d prefer the lanterns more in the daylight, but when the sun went down they transformed into these floating orbs of light. After watching moon rise up, we went lit our lanterns and took a moonlight lantern walk in our neighborhood.

An enchanting twilight walk around the block turned into a delightful adventure with our painted lanterns. Just imagine an assembly of these lanterns flickering about… What a sight that would be!

For more lantern projects check out:

These leaf lanterns, colorful paper maché lanterns, and sweet mason jar lanterns with beaded handles via Kleas.

Grace Lin, author of Thanking the Moon: Celebrating the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival (and so many other fantastic kids books!) has a fun Bunny Lantern Craft tutorial on her blog.

Children’s Art Lanterns using paper bags and kids’ artwork is definitely on our project to-do list via Artful Kids.