On the eve of the New Year holidays, a special time is coming: every family, every house and every city is preparing for the upcoming celebration. Someone buys gifts for loved ones, someone seeks out recipes for delicious dishes, and someone decorates a Christmas tree and a house. New Year is a fabulous holiday with its atmosphere and mystery. It should be properly prepared for it.
Home decoration is a separate tradition. It is customary for all family members to take part in it, and for good reason: it is precisely such moments that bring people together and envelop the warmth of the hearth. There are a lot of elements of Christmas decorations for the home on sale, and you can buy everything that your soul desires - almost all store shelves are littered with Christmas tinsel. But it will be much better if you yourself make a little effort to decorate your home. To do this is not at all difficult, and the lesson itself will bring pleasure.
On the eve of the holiday
There are thousands of ideas for New Year’s creativity: you can cut out snowflakes and decorate rooms, make garlands and New Year’s lanterns, paint windows with patterns, make toys, crackers, decorate candles festively. Perhaps someone will even decide to independently execute Santa Claus and the Snow Maiden.
Making paper lanterns with your own hands is a great idea. Paper - the material is simple, pliable and affordable, it will take only a little free time and imagination. Crafts from paper can be completely different in shape and size. They can decorate the Christmas tree, they can be arranged in various places at home or put in garlands and hang under the ceiling. Placing tiny light bulbs inside a paper lantern, you can get real Christmas light garlands. They will softly illuminate the room, giving it even more comfort and fabulous mystery.
The idea of making New Year's lanterns out of paper and decorating them with a house carries a secret meaning. In ancient China, it was believed that such products were able to protect the home from the mythical New Year's animal, whose name is Nien. Today they are used as decoration for parties and allow you to emphasize the festive mood.
The simplest
We will offer several options for how to make paper lanterns with your own hands. Let's start with simple ideas that even small children can easily realize. Take colored paper or any other suitable one, scissors, glue, stapler, thin cloth tape or thick thread, on which you hang the flashlights afterwards. You can proceed.
Fold a piece of paper diagonally and cut off the part that will protrude beyond the line. This way you get an even square. Next, fold the paper figure as shown above in the photo. Paper lanterns can be supplemented with a loop and hang on a ribbon or animate them with the help of light. Place a Christmas light bulb inside each such flashlight and secure it with tape. It remains only to decorate the house.
Traditional lanterns
This is one of the easiest craft options. Surely many of you have already seen similar products.
- Take a rectangular sheet of colored paper. Cut an even strip of 1 cm wide from it. After that it will be used for the eyelet - handle.
- Fold the paper in half. Make transverse cuts from the folded part of the sheet to the edges. Be careful not to cut the paper to the end completely, leave 1 cm from the edges.
- Expand the leaflet.
- Fold the paper as shown in the photo above. Fasten the edges with tape, glue or a stapler. Attach the handle.
Pumpkins
To make such paper lanterns with your own hands, fold a sheet of paper 3 times. After cut 1/3 part along the fold line.
Fold a large part in half and make equal cuts with scissors along the entire length of the leaf, leaving only the top part intact. Get paper fringe.
Expand a piece of paper. Turn the uncut parts in the opposite direction, you should get a tube. Fasten out with glue and the remaining strip of paper.
It remains only to attach a small eyelet on top so that you can hang a flashlight. Below you can supplement the figure with a tail from a chopped ribbon.
Good luck
Such a paper lantern, according to Chinese beliefs, brings good luck to the house. In its manufacture paper is used in red and yellow (gold) color. To make such paper lanterns with your own hands, you will need to cut colorful circles and connect them together in a certain way. The photo below will help you with this.
Use a coffee cup or any other improvised item that will allow you to outline even small circles on paper. Cut 4 yellow and 4 red circles - this will be enough for one flashlight.
Fold the edges of the circles, as shown in the figure above, and fasten them together using tape or glue. Attach a loop at the top and a colorful tail at the bottom. The flashlight is ready!
Houses
Such an item of decoration is perfect not only for any holiday, but can also be a constant element of decor. The shape can be completely different, as well as the appearance of the flashlight. New Year and Christmas motifs are perfect for winter holidays, bats and pumpkins for Halloween, pigeons with angels for Easter. The idea to make New Year's lanterns with your own hands is practical and original, and most importantly - in every house there is material for such crafts.
Use sturdy paper or cardboard. Small boxes of juice or milk are perfect. In this case, it remains only to cut out the windows in the box, paint it in the desired color or arrange it using decoupage. You can paste such a flashlight with felt or gift paper. Use various elements of jewelry from above, in our case, these are birds with berries and leaves.
For the windows of the flashlight house, you can use small pieces of plastic (from bottles) or tracing paper. They can be glued with double-sided tape or glue.
If finding a suitable box is problematic, do not give up such an idea. The housing of the house can easily be done by yourself by cutting out parts from thick paper. In this case, you can improvise with models: they can be triangular or semicircular, diamond-shaped or have the form of a real street lighting device. Pendant paper lanterns will perfectly complement the New Year's garland, and separate ones will become an original element of the New Year's decor.
Christmas stars
Why not decorate your home with stars? Making Christmas lights with your own hands in the shape of stars is a great idea.
Take suitable paper, scissors and glue. Cut a few patterns according to the diagram above in the photo, glue the corners. Now it remains to collect the tips of the stars among themselves. In the middle of the paper flashlight, place a few lights from the garland. This craft can also be used as a Christmas toy. You can fantasize a little and cut on paper for the future star fancy curls, snowflakes or small stars - they will look spectacular when highlighted.
Balloons
This is another great idea for any party or family holiday. Making these paper toys with your own hands is very easy, and finding it is even easier for them to find. They are suitable for decorating a Christmas tree, they can be folded together in a large glass bowl or vase, used as cases for small gifts for children, they can be supplemented with garlands of paper lanterns. These balls will add color to the house and decorate the holiday table.
For creativity you will need the following tools: scissors, a ruler, a stapler, a hole punch and a suitable paper with a thematic pattern. Now you need to cut the sheets with the same stripes. The longer and wider they are, the larger the ball will be in size.
Put the strips in a pile. Having departed a little from each end, we connect them with the help of a stapler - now they are reliably fastened to each other on both sides.
It remains to roll the ball. Start with the bottom strip. Turn it in the opposite direction from the rest. Turn the remaining fastened elements - this will form the product. Flatten to your liking. The paper flashlight is ready! Agree that doing it is very simple!
From china with love
Chinese paper lanterns are structures stretched over a wooden frame. They are also called sky lanterns. In addition, such products are an excellent platform for creativity. They are light, airy and are not expensive at all. It remains only to decorate them to your liking, and the New Year miracle will be ready. Paper lanterns can be painted or pasted using decoupage technique using New Year's motifs, you can use the backlight for them or leave without it. Such products are perfect for New Year's decor.
Take a few white lanterns, connect them together, add a hat, a scarf, and a great New Year's snowman is ready! Show a little creative ingenuity - simple materials can lead you to thousands of great ideas for a solemn event.
Safe holiday
Paper is most often used as a decoration material, because, as you know, it will endure everything. For example, you can make a paper flashlight or a beautiful toy as an origami. But no matter what you choose, remember that paper products are highly flammable. Therefore, if you decide to dwell on this particular material, use those lamps that do not heat up under lighting and refuse candles to illuminate flashlights. Holidays should be beautiful, stammering and safe!