DIY - Chinese Paper Lanterns

This post is not about making your own Chinese lanterns, but adding embellishments to spruce them up. My colors were black and white so I was able to find large 20" white lanterns on eBay. The yellow lanterns I found at Michaels craft store on their $1 aisle, and they are 8". I then bought different types and sizes of black ribbon and hot glued them to the white lanterns. I left the yellow lanterns plain because I did not want to over-do it, so I used them as the accent lanterns.

Another option to gluing ribbon to the lanterns is cutting out shapes, etc. from tissue paper and lightly gluing those shapes to the lanterns.

None of the lanterns came with a lighting kit, that would have made them much more expensive. You really can't have an evening wedding in a garden with unlit lanterns, so I had to get creative. At Costco I found a 28-pack of battery operated tea lights for around $13.00 and at Hobby Lobby (or any craft store) I found little double-sided sticky squares that were perfect to attach the tea light to the inside of the lantern. You do have to turn the tea light on, then attach it to the inside of the lantern, before you can hang it in the tree.

Here are a couple of tricks for hanging the lanterns. First, use fishing line. Because fishing line is clear it gives the lanterns a more natural hanging, breezy look. Second, attach a small fishing weight to the end of the fishing line to give it some weight, this will help you throw the line over a branch. That way, if you don't have a ladder tall enough you won't have a hard time getting the line over the branch. Also, once you've gotten the fishing line over the branch and are ready to tie it off, be sure to tie it off on the metal bracket of the lantern rather than tying it off on the fishing line. Tying the line off to the line itself will cause a noose effect, the knot will travel to the top of the branch and will cause a lot more work in taking the lanterns down after your event. Tying the line to the metal bracket of the lantern requires just one snip with the scissors and the fishing line and lantern will come down in one piece.