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This Chinese New Year lantern craft is a great way to teach your kids about the Chinese New Year and its traditions! All you need is this free printable guide, red paper, glue and gold glitter!
Fun Facts about Chinese Lanterns:
- During Chinese New Year, lanterns are hung in homes as well as across the cities.
- The lanterns symbolize good luck and a bright future.
- Red represents “good luck” and gold represents “wealth” so lanterns are often made with these two colors.
- The Lantern Festival marks the end of Chinese New Year celebrations (held on the 15th day of the lunar year). There is a fantastic display of lanterns of all shapes, colors and sizes. The lanterns are either hanging, floating or flying!
Chinese New Year Books
Chinese New Year is a time of new beginnings. Follow one little girl as she learns how to welcome the coming year and experience all the festivities surrounding it.
When a boy goes to the market to buy food and comes home with an old wok instead, his parents wonder what they’ll eat for dinner. But then the wok rolls out of the poor family’s house with a skippity-hoppity-ho! and returns from the rich man’s home with a feast in tow!
How do you make this Chinese New Year lantern craft?
Materials:
Step 1: Print the guide onto a sheet of red paper. Then, fold the paper so the line at the top of the page matches the first line at the bottom of the page, as shown below. Create a good crease, then open the paper up.
Step 2: Add glue to all of the columns as well as the bar at the top of the page and the bar below the columns. Then pour glitter over the glue and shake off the excess. Let the glue dry completely. **Whether your printer prints to the edge of the page or leaves a boarder, make sure to extend the top and bottom bars to one edge, and leave a space on the other end, as pictured below. This will be where the two ends are glued together later.
Step 3: Fold the paper in half again using the crease made earlier. Cut on both sides of each gold column, stopping at the gold bar (as pictured below).
Step 4: Open the paper up, then create a fringe on the bottom by making a lot of thin cuts (see picture below).
Step 5: Create a cylinder by gluing the two ends of the paper together. (Put the glue on the part of the paper without glitter on it.) Use clothespins to hold it together while it dries. Then, cut a log strip out of another sheet of red paper and create a handle by gluing it to the top of the lantern. Use clothespins to hold both ends of the handle together while it dries. Remove the clothespins once all the glue has dried, and there you have it…a Chinese New Year lantern!
Download the free printable guide!
Print this Chinese lantern guide on a piece of red paper to create the lantern pictured above.
Alternatively, you can print this on a white sheet of paper and color or paint the lantern instead of using red paper and glitter.
Try these other Chinese New Year crafts!
- Chinese New Year Lion Puppet with Free Printable
- Chinese New Year Firecrackers Craft with Free Printables
- DIY Chinese Red Envelope (Lai See/Hóngbāo)
- Chinese Almond Cookies (Hawaiian Style)
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