DIY Photo Lantern

I came across this craft around the holidays because I was trying to come up with a personalized gift to make my mom for Christmas.  As I was making it I realized that it would be such a great decoration idea for a wedding!  It was very simple and I think it turned out really great.

The first thing you need to do while shopping for your supplies is to get a lantern.  I found mine at Home Goods (one of my very favorite stores), and it was perfect!  It's important to get a lantern that you can put an LED light in.  You don't want to use an actual candle, because you don't want to start anything on fire (there will be paper inside the lantern).  The lantern I found was perfect because each of the outside glass pieces come out individually, and there was a built in LED light! 

MATERIALS NEEDED:

Lantern

Vellum Paper

Printer

Spray Adhesive

LED Tealight

DIRECTIONS:

1) Take the glass pieces outside of the lantern and measure them.  Your photo will need to be this size when printed on the vellum paper.

2) On your computer, find the photos you'd like to print and manipulate them so they are printed semi-transparent.  Make sure to print each picture on a separate piece of vellum paper so that it will fit on the glass pieces of the lantern.  Cut the photos to the sizes of the glass lantern pieces.

3) Spray the back of a piece of glass with the spray adhesive and apply the photo to it, so the photo will shine through the front.  Take a squeegee (or credit card like I did!) to ensure there are no bubbles.  Repeat this for all four sides and let dry (I dried them overnight).

4) Put the pieces of glass back into the lantern and turn on your LED light.

These pictures don't even do the lantern justice! Again, such and easy way to create something really personal without too much work! If you liked this DIY project check out some of our other popular ones like: Spagetti Tshirt Scarf or Paper Flowers or a String Lantern! Have a great time making these DIYers!

~Erin

1st Pictures