Make Your Own Chinese Laterns

When we were growing up in Macao, my grandfather used to buy each of us a lantern for the Mid-Autumn festival. There were lanterns in the shapes of different fruits and animals. I’m not sure if people still make make and sell lanterns like that in Macao today. Here in the US, my friend Wai and I came up with a way to make lanterns for our kids. It is a lot of fun; we get the kids involved, and we make some pretty nice looking lanterns every year.


It was hard to come up with the required materials in China, but here we can find everything we need, such as hot glue guns, reinforced tape, and metal wire to make the frames.

Basically, we use two different types material to construct the frames. The smaller lanterns are built using metal wire, and the larger lanterns are built using bamboo strips, since these are stronger and keep their shape better. Once the frame is constructed, tissue paper is glued on.

For the rabbit and the turtle, we used the heavy gauge metal wire held together by twisting the wires together or hot glue. On the left is a close up of the rabbit’s neck showing the metal wires. Make sure you don’t use too heavy a gauge of wire, because it will make it harder to work with. The paper that is used to cover the entire lantern is light, translucent tissue paper.

The turtle that is shown on the right has a similar construction. The main thing is to make sure you get the frame exactly the way you want it before covering it in paper. The head and the ears of the rabbit and the head of the turtle were formed as part of the main wire frame, but the feet and the tail of the turtle were added to the main frame because it was easier to work with them seperately and then attach them. After the frame is constructed, don’t forget to attach a candle holder; it’s much easier to install that now than to wait until the decorative paper has been glued on. This way you don’t have to worry about tearing something.


The candles that we used were basic tea candles that came encased in aluminum. To make the holder, we emptied the candle out of the original foil holder, poked four holes in the sides, stuck a couple of wires through said holes in the base of the foil holder, and attached this assembly to the base of the frame. Below on the left is a holder as it is attached to the bottom of the turtle lantern, and the right is the same holder with a candle loaded in it.

After the frame is constructed, the tissue paper skin can be attached. There are a lot of colors fron which to choose, and the material is thin enough that candle lights up the entire cavity, allowing it to function adequately as a lantern. We attached a thin metal wire to the two corners of the top opening and then attached that to the end of a small bamboo stick so that the kids could carry the lantern around in the yard after dark. When night fell, we had a lantern parade with the kids from a few other families.

Tissue paper is thin. We used regular liquid glue to attach it to the frame, making sure to glue the paper to itself and not to the metal, since glue doesn’t stick to metal too well. We found that using too much glue results in soaked tissue paper and a potential hole.

After the glue dries, decorate the feet, head, tail, etc., appropriately  with a magic marker. Again, be careful not to poke through the thin tissue paper. The eyes and the decoration make a lot of difference in the final appearance of the lantern. You might also consider cutting out small pieces of shiny paper to make the decorations. The eyes of the rabbit are small circles cut from construction paper. For the fur of the rabbit, we used wide strips of paper that were cut vertically, leaving an inch or so at the top in order to attach it to the body.


This is the first kind of lantern.

The second approach to making the frame is with bamboo strips. We found old bamboo sticks, which we cut lengthwise into long strips. We found that we needed to use bamboo strip for the larger lanterns like the start fruit. (Why is the fruit larger than the animals? Don’t ask.) First, six equal length strips were tied together at both ends using reinforced tape. The same type of tape was used to construct the rest of the lantern.

For the skin, we used clear transparent cylopone paper from an arts and crafts store. Though it looked a little wrinkled when the paper was glued on the frame, after the glue dried on the frame, we used a damp tissue to gently wipe the transparent skin. As we did that, the paper started to dry, and it shrunk and generated a perfectly stretched skin. This is a trick I learned from observing the lantern makers back in Macao.

Sometimes it’s hard to come up with good ideas for the shape; why not let the kids come up with their own ideas? Some of our children made stars. The turtle was my son’s idea but I did the final construction. Here is a lantern designed and created by my daughter. It was built with a wire frame and absolutely no help from any of the adults. For her first time making a lantern by herself, I think it looks pretty good.


The perfect time for Displaying your Chinese lanterns is Mid-Autumn Festival.