Asian New Year Craft: Tiger Lanterns

   

Jimmies Collage is hosting a Chinese New Year Contest.

Link up your craft, project or lesson.

2010: Year of the Tiger 

Lunar New Year, February 14th

Jazz up the ubiquitous lantern craft with homemade tiger paper. So Easy to do! Start by ripping strips of black construction paper. Hold the paper the long way and start ripping. Strips should not be uniform! Different lengths and widths are good. Just keep ripping until you have a nice pile.

Start gluing down the strips onto orange construction paper. Glue paper in tiger like pattern. See picture below. You can give a child a brush and a cup of glue that has been slightly thinned with water or they can use a glue stick. For younger children, squirt glue onto paper and let child place paper on top an rub flat.

Let dry. For a cylinder lantern just roll and staple or glue. Punch holes in top and thread ribbon or yarn through to hang. For a fancier lantern, fold paper in half the long way or "hot dog bun" way as I call it. Cut shallow slits into the paper about an inch apart. Make sure not to cut all the way through. Unfold, roll and staple or glue.

This technique also works well for Zebra paper. Have fun crafting with your kids!