Stars N Stripes Lanterns

Back in 2013, I designed a seamless Stars N Stripes tile based on a tiny piece of a 1890 fabric:

Back then I used my seamless tile to designe papers, pyramid gift boxes and even a PARTY garland:

Stars N Stripes – Printable Paper 1

Stars N Stripes – Printable Paper 2

Stars N Stripes – Printable Paper 3

Stars N Stripes – Pyramid Gift Boxes

Stars N Stripes – PARTY Bunting

My Stars N Stripes designs have remained very popular ever since, so for revamping my deck, of course I had to once more “borrow a holiday” (I’m Norwegian, living in Norway…) and deck the deck for 4th of July:

Here is one last picture, shortly before midnight last night, and me going to bed:Luckily, with all the cold rain last night, this was just a test run after having hung my decorations, the forecast for the weekend is sunny and warm, perfect for a party! 😀

INSTRUCTIONS:

• Print the lanterns onto cardstock or photo paper (I use Canon 170g Matte Photo Paper)
• Optional: run all the pages through a laminator WITHOUT the plastic pocket – just to heat set the print color to help prevent the ink from running in the moist air outside… (No need to do this if you have a laser printer, but a little trick I came up with for my inkjet printer!)
• Cut out the individual lanterns. and score along the middle line
• Cut the slits with scissors while your lantern is sharply folded in half, that makes the cutting so much easier!
• Roll on some tape on the left side of the lantern, and attach the right side, it should overlap so the pattern matches up.
• Punch 2 (small) holes in the top rim of the lantern
• Cut 2 pieces of wire approx 15cm long (approx 6″)
• Thread both wires through both holes and twist a couple of times on one side
• Carefully widen the wires in the middle to be able to pull them over the bulb, then twist the other side to fasten the lantern into position.
• NB! Use only LED light bulbs for these, to avoid any fire hazard!!!
• Hang your chain of lanterns, and enjoy!

The lanterns can of course be hung with string, wire or pretty ribbon (no light), as festive decorations for a daytime garden party as well!

Here are some pictures of the process (please ignore the mess in the background…:-O):

My chain of LED party lights has 10 bulbs, so I made 10 lanterns:

I chose to fasten my wire as high on the socket as possible, so the bulb would be positioned approximately in the middle of the lantern. I might go over the wire with my jewelry pliers and prettify the ends… I would have done that on the table, but of course I was overexcited about my idea, HAD to hang the lights first, and THEN climb up on a ladder to hang each lantern… so don’t do as I did, do as I say and fasten the lanterns on your partylights b-e-f-o-r-e you hang them, if you want pretty finishings…lol

I don’t expect these to hold up well to being taken down after the party, so you might want to consider other ways of hanging them on your string of LED party bulbs, or the holes for the wire could be reinforced with small eyelets!

Here’s a preview of the printable lanterns:

If celebrating 4th of July is not in your plans, but you like the idea of dressing up plain party lights, you might want to consider the Vintage Rose Lanterns I made last summer (click on image to go to original post):

Rose Lanterns

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