Make your own (figma) Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern!

The upcoming 3rd of October is the Mid-Autumn Festival or as the people here in Singapore like to call it, the Mooncake Festival (which is technically wrong).

So there’ll be hot tea, delicious mooncake and a big bright moon.

But wait!

What about your figmas? Let them join in the fun too by making for them their own little paper lantern!

Kagami reads the instructions, I do the work ^^

I won’t profess to have 1337 handicraft skills so if you can do a better job than me please go ahead :3

So, you’ll need some paper (preferably translucent and semi-tough so it won’t tear easily), pencil, double-sided tape, needle and thread, some cutting tools and rulers.

1) Measure and cut out a strip 2 cm wide with one color. This will be the inner part of the lantern.

2) Measure and cut out another strip using a different coloured paper, this time 2.5 cm wide. This will be the outer part of the lantern.

Like so

3) Take the outer (or larger) strip and stencil lines 0.25 cm (or 2.5 mm) away each edge of the strip.

Then, fold the strip in half.

I will now differentiate the sides using the words “convex” and “concave”.  “Concave” is the face where it curves inwards.

4) Next, stencil marks at intervals on one of the stenciled lines. Using these marks, cut lines between your 2 stenciled lines at 0.25 cm intervals.

You don’t have to stencil out the intervals if you are confident of cutting regular intervals without them.

5) Now, place double-sided tape on one of the un-cut regions on the CONCAVE side of the strip.

When this is done, we can work on the other, smaller strip.

6) On the smaller strip, place some double-sided tape on the span of one side.

7) Take a cylindrical object (I used a 1/4 inch drill bit =P) and wind the strip around it to make a tube, sealing it with the tape in placed in step 6. Cut off any excess.

If you are having trouble doing this, I would suggest you put a small piece of tape at the reverse side of the strip to help you keep the strip in place. However, make sure you loosen the tube from whatever cylindrical object you used before moving to step 8.

Using a small piece of tape to hold the strip on the drill bit

8) Add small pieces of tape on the CONVEX side of the larger strip. Removing part of the tape placed in step 5 earlier, attach the strip to the tube and go in a full circle (or as many times as you want) before finally sealing it with the small pieces of tape added in this step. Cut off any excess.

You should get the lantern shown below when you push up one end of the outer tube.

Repeat steps 6 to 8 for as many lanterns you want.

9) Using some needle and thread, run the thread through the free moving end of the lantern to lock the lantern in the “opened” shape. Cut and tie a knot and you have a lantern! You can also attach it to a stick!

Misleading pic ^^;;. You have to poke through when it is in the “opened” shape

Not one of the better ones honestly

And with that, a simple lantern for figmas is made!

But wait a minute!

How does it GLOW?

With the help of a laser mounted on a tripod and aimed at the lantern of course :3

I made this lantern with that original idea in mind.

If you can, you could try using LEDs though you’d have to find a way to hide the wires.

So, let’s have a few shots of the lantern in action at the pre-Mooncake Festival (as oOgA calls it XD) that I took.

Yes, still the laser.

With oOgA’s Konata Nendo that he SACRILEGIOUSLY damaged.