Altered Metal Lantern

Ah, the month of January. The Christmas hubbub is over, the gifts have been put away, the tree has been taken down (right? Well, if not, just print some cute hearts from any of the fabulous Valentine’s Day kits in the shop, cut them out, hang them, and call it a Valentine’s Day tree!), and the stores are now selling Easter candy! I think they forgot about a holiday in February!

Personally, I’m not ready to think about Easter and the DigiChick designers haven’t started creating their Easter kits yet, so today I’m going to show you how I altered this simple little white lantern into a sweet little Valentine’s Day decoration for my home.

Supplies used

small Rotera lantern from Ikea
Valentine Retrospect digital scrapbook kit by Quirky Twerp
Fiskars paper trimmer
stylus or bone folder for scoring
Zots sticky dots adhesive
scalloped border punch
scalloped circle punch
small circle punch
Epson matte presentation paper

First, I measured one pane of the lantern to determine how to create my document. The pane measured about 3″ high by 2″ wide. I created one clipping mask on my document that was the size of four blocks, and one that was the size of two blocks. I also created a clipping mask that was 11″ high x 1.5″ wide to use as my strip of paper for my accordion flower. Finally, I created a 2.125″ square that contained the letters LOVE and the white paper from the kit.

I printed the document and then cut apart each piece. I turned my scalloped circle punch upside down so I could make sure my letters were in the center of the circle.

To create my accordion flower, I started by punching one long edge of my paper strip with the open scallop border punch.

Next, I used my stylus to score in between each scallop. I used the groove on my Fiskars paper trimmer to guide the stylus in a straight line.

Once the whole strip had been scored, I folded the strip up as though I were making a paper fan. Then I placed several small Zots sticky dots on one end of the strip.

I attached the short ends of the strip to form a circle. Then I pushed the middle together and held it in place by adding a Zots 3-D Sticky Dot to a small circle I had punched out.

I attached another circle to the front with the same 3-D sticky dot. Then I attached the LOVE scalloped circle on top of the accordion flower. I set the completed embellishment aside while I fitted the inside of the lantern with the paper I had printed out.

I took the 8″ rectangle of paper and scored it at 2″ intervals. I folded the paper and then placed it inside the lantern. It was a little too tall, so I had to trim a tiny sliver of paper off the bottom. I placed the paper back into the lantern, and used sticky dots on the four outer corners to adhere the paper inside.

After that paper was secured, I took the smaller rectangle and fitted it to the door of the lantern, adhering it in the same way, with small sticky dots on the outer four corners of the paper.

The lantern looks pretty sweet with just the pretty paper inside the glass, but I wanted to take it a step further in its beauty, so I added the accordion flower. I also decided at the last minute to add a ribbon and flower cluster to the top of the handle.

I just tied a bow with some ribbon, added a red felt brad to the center of two six-petal white flowers, and then added a flat-backed pearl to the top of the brad. I placed a sticky dot on the back of this cluster and added it to the handle.

And there you have it – a sweet little lantern all dressed up for Valentine’s Day! This project was so quick, easy, and inexpensive and I love how it turned out!

Altered Metal Lantern

Other Articles by joana1n:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply