Crafts · Party/Tablescapes

How To Embellish Chinese Lanterns

Chinese lanterns are an inexpensive way to add both light and a fun festive element to a celebration. And now that individual battery operated lanterns are available, they can be hung anywhere. However, finding them decorated and in your particular color scheme is a bit more difficult. I wanted white lanterns with green flowers for my Dum Sum On The Deck Tablescape so, I decided to make my own.

How To Embellish Chinese Lanterns for Dim Sum On The Deck: A Chinese Take-out Dinner Party--featheringmyemptynest.com

I purchased a set of six lanterns on sale from Michaels and proceeded to embellish them. The first step was to hand draw branches with a brown artist felt tip marker all around the globe as if they were growing out of the bottom of and up towards the top.

How To Embellish Chinese Lanterns--step one: draw on branches with an artist felt tip pen--featheringmyemptynest.com

Using two different colors of green scrapbook paper, I cut out a variety of flowers with paper punches that I bought years ago when my kids were little and we were doing a lot of crafts. I also used one sheet of white craft paper to create centers for the flowers with two different sized hole punches.

Supplies for How To Embellish Chinese Lanterns--featheringmyemptynest.com

I put the different sized and colored flower cutouts together with white glue.

Punched out paper flowers-How To Embellish Chinese Paper Lanterns--featheringmyemptynest.com

After I made all of the blossoms, I used the glue to adhere them to the lanterns along the branches.

Glue punched out flowers along the branches on lantern --How To Embellish Chinese Lanterns--featheringmyemptynest.com

This is a simple project if a bit time consuming, but it is a great way to customize lanterns to your party decor. If you don’t want to take the time to cut out all of the flowers, you could also purchase artificial blooms, stickers, or even use bits of colored tissue paper instead.

How To Embellish Chinese Lanterns--featheringmyemptynest.com
Embellished battery powered paper lantern

How To Embellish Chinese Lanterns for Dim Sum On The Deck: A Chinese Take-out Dinner Party--featheringmyemptynest.com

Sharing this post with these fantastic link parties:

Share your Style, Wildly Original, Artsy Fartsy, Friday Features, Feathered Nest Friday, The Creative Circle, Inspiration Gallery, The Pin Junkie, Funtastic Friday, Pretty Pintastic, Creative Collection, Sweet Inspiration, Best Of The Weekend, Inspiration Monday, Amaze Me Monday, Over The Moon, Block Party, Inspire Me Monday, The Scoop, Project Inspired, Show And Tell, Share It, Wow Us Wednesdays, Party In Your PJs, Tuesday Talk , Dream, Create, Inspire, Link, Welcome Home Wednesdays, Reader Tip Tuesday

26 thoughts on “How To Embellish Chinese Lanterns

  1. Super cute! What a great way to personalize the paper lanterns and make them fit in with your scheme! I will absolutely be pinning this craft to try later

  2. What a pretty outdoor tablescape and such a creative lantern project too!

    Thanks for visiting my blog and commenting a while back. Your comment landed in a hidden folder on Blogger and I just now found it. Thanks for stopping by!

    Lisa

  3. Your lanterns are fantastic, love how you made something plain so pretty with some time and supplies. Very ingenious. Have inspired me to make pretty paper lantern for our grand daughter. Printing this post so I don’t forget.

    1. Thanks so much for taking the time to comment. I think that embellishing a lantern for a child’s room is a great idea. I know your granddaughter will love it.

    1. Thanks so much Mary. These battery powered lanterns are really neat but as you point out, embellishing them is easy and allows you to take them to the next level.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.