I love Chinese New Year! Well, actually I just love celebrating two new years because I figure if one's resolutions fall through, I get a second chance in February. My little family always celebrates by breaking out our chopsticks and having a Chinese feast and I love to make Chinese New Year Crafts. This year, my Chinese New Year craft was paper lanterns. I love how they turned out and I think they would work for any table setting or party decor. Heck, I'm considering putting these in our living room just for a little ambient light.
To make them, I printed out one of my doodle pages on vellum paper. I printed two copies. I printed my doodle page in color and then I used a Sharpie(TM) marker to enhance the color. Then I created a frame for the lantern. I drew mine free hand, but you can find patterns for paper lanterns all over the internet. I taped my vellum doodle paper into the lantern frame.
Then I took my second sheet of vellum doodles, cut out some of the flowers and used Aleene's Tacky Dot Singles to glue them over the design in the lantern. This gave the lantern a 3D look. The flowers looked as though they were overflowing from the frame. I used some of Tulip's Beads in a Bottle to create dots on the vellum paper, just to make it look extra special.
Warning! Don't use these with real candles! Use battery-operated tea lights.
I love this idea! Did you print your doodles out in color, or color them after? If so, with what – what's your ink of choice on vellum? TFS!
Thanks for the question Allie! I printed it out in color and then used a Sharpie(TM) marker to color it in because the colors were too muted for me. I think I could have also played with the saturation in Photoshop before printing it.
Sorry, more questions – do you do any special setting or anything different when printing on Vellum? I've had mixed results, but then … I know there are different types of Vellum.
Hi Allie,
I used a vellum made for Ink Jets. It’s by Strathmore. Hope that helps!