Lantern Making for Lantern Festival (The Artistic Beauty of Traditional Skills)

The Lantern Festival is one of the traditional Chinese festivals and one of the most characteristic Chinese folk festivals. During this festival, people light up all kinds of lanterns to express their prayers for a better future. Lantern making is an ancient handicraft that turns ordinary paper into a work of art through skillful paper-cutting and painting techniques. In this article, we will introduce the steps and techniques of Lantern Lantern Making, and bring you to enjoy the artistic beauty of traditional skills.

Material Preparation

Before making lanterns, we need to prepare some necessary materials. The first is paper, choose paper with certain toughness and light transmittance, such as red or yellow paper. Next are tools such as scissors, pencils and colored pens for drawing and decorating lanterns. You also need to prepare a thin rope or wire for hanging lanterns.

Making Steps

1. Make the frame of the lantern. First, fold the paper in half, then use a pencil to mark diagonal points on the paper at equal distances from each other that will become the apex of the lantern. Next, use scissors to connect the dots on the diagonal lines to form a diamond-shaped frame. Cut out the diamond shape and then cut a small opening at each vertex for securing the structure of the lantern.

2. Draw the pattern. Unfold the frame and use a pencil to draw the pattern you want on the paper, which can be flowers, birds, figures or abstract geometric patterns. Then, fill in the pattern with colored pencils or colored paper cutouts to make the lantern more colorful.

3. Decorate the lantern. At the top and bottom of the lantern, you can use colorful paper or ribbons to decorate and increase the beauty of the lantern. You can also cut out small holes around the lantern to form a beautiful pattern, when the lantern is lit, the light through the small holes, forming a unique light effect.

4. Fix the rope. At the top and bottom of the lantern, use scissors to go through two small openings on the diagonal, pass the thin rope or wire through it, and then tie the two ends together so that the lantern can be hung.

Tips and Precautions

1. Be careful when cutting the paper to avoid cutting the structure of the lantern.

2. When drawing the pattern, you can use pencil to outline on the paper first, and then fill in with colored pencils.

3. When cutting out small holes around the lantern, you can use scissors or special small hole cutters, be careful not to cut too big to avoid affecting the structure of the lantern.