DIY Tea Light Lanterns With Pretty Images

This is an upcycle which uses the gorgeous vintage images on this site to make cute mini DIY tea light lanterns.

This is a very affordable craft. It uses printable vellum paper and upcycled jam jar lids to make fun mini tea light lanterns. The pictures on the lantern can be changed to reflect the seasons, or when you fancy a change.

The options are endless, you can make Japanese style mini lanterns, butterfly lanterns, flower lanterns or even map lanterns of your favourite places. Any of the vintage image collections on Picture Box Blue can be turned into one of these tea light lanterns.

Some images will work better then others. But as they are so easy and cheap to make you can afford to have fun finding the best ones.

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(There is a printable how-to card for this craft at the end of the post.)

What You Need To Make DIY Tea Light Lanterns

• Printable vellum paper – Vellum paper is a semi-transparent paper like tracing paper. The thicker the paper you can get the better. But as these are mini lanterns, even thin vellum paper will stand up well.

• Jam Jar lids – I used food jar lids from average sized jars, these were about 20cm in diameter. You will need 2 lids the same size for each mini lantern.
• Copper spray paint for the jam jar lids
• Double sided sticky tape
• Measuring tape and scissors
• Battery tea lights – The remote controlled tea lights are best as they can easily be switched on and off.

How To Make the Mini Vintage Image Lanterns

Step 1: First, spray paint the jam jar lids with the copper spray paint. You will need two lids of the same size for each DIY tea light lantern.

Step 2: Measure the circumference of the jam jar lid. This is the length that the printed vellum image will need to be, plus a 5mm allowance, for an overlap.

Printing the Lantern Skins

Step 3: The lantern skins are printed onto the vellum paper using a home inkjet printer. I found that the width of standard A4 (letter paper) was the perfect length for the lanterns. And I managed to fit three different lantern designs on each piece of paper.

Software packages such as CANVA and Photoshop are great for arranging pictures on paper. Below are some of the examples I printed from the vast collection of images on Picture Box Blue to use for the lanterns.

If you want to use any of these for your DIY tea light lanterns, just click on the title above the set of images and it will open in a new window in your browser. The image can then be printed or saved to the hard drive.

DIY Tea Light Lantern Skins Set 1

1. The first image is from a Japanese woodcut from the vintage Japanese image collection.
2. The second images is a Ernest Dudley Chase pictorial world map.
3. Finally the butterflies are an example of the Emile-Allain Séguy Pochoir Prints.

Mini Lantern Skins 2

1. Vintage passion flower image find more vintage flowers here.
2. Mirandaing Mississippi river map.
3. Vintage patent of a camera from the patent image collection.

Mini Lantern Skins 3

1. Vintage tiger drawings.
2. William Morris designs and patterns.
3. Vintage zodiac star charts of John Bevis.

Step 4: Cut out the lantern image you want to use from the printed vellum paper. If you have a paper guillotine use that to get a nice straight edge. But scissors will do.

Step 5: Make sure that the length of the printed vellum is long enough to fit inside the jam jar lid (allow 5mm for an overlap).

Step 6: Next, add a strip of double-sided sticky tape to the edge of the back of printed vellum paper. Then roll the paper into a tube and fix it in place with the sticky tape.

Step 7: Place the printed vellum paper tube into the jar lid. Then add a tea light before putting another lid on the top. I didn’t secure the jar lids with glue so I could easily change the images whenever I wanted. However, if you are making more permanent DIY tea light lanterns, glue can be used to fix the sleeves to the lids.

I love how cute these mini tea light lanterns look on my mantle and you can have fun trying out different vintage images. I’m very fond of old maps, so I made a couple of map versions.

If these mini tea light lanterns are a little on the small side, I do have a giant version on Picture Box Blue made with an IKEA floor lamp hack and the Louis Renard fishes.

Don’t forget to check out all the other craft DIY ideas for using vintage images on Pictureboxblue.com and make sure you have these crafting essentials in your craft cupboard.