This tiger paper lantern craft is the perfect craft to make to celebrate the tiger and Chinese New Year. It is simple enough for school-aged children to make as well as preschoolers with some guidance. The great thing about this craft is how it develops and works with the skill of the child, younger children will have fun drawing lines while older children can really think about the pattern of the tiger stripes that they want to create. Today we will step you through the process so you can make your own tiger paper lantern.

Tiger Paper Lantern Craft

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Chinese New Year is a celebration that extends to many countries in the world. It is always such a fun time! As it is the year of the tiger we decided to make these fun paper lanterns. These simple-to-make lanterns were always been a favorite craft of my childhood. I am sure many of you also will have fond memories of making these paper lanterns at school or home! They would look great all hung up on a long ribbon as a decoration for Chinese New Year.

This is such a simple craft that no printable is required. Simply follow the steps below to create your own Tiger Paper Lantern craft.

Materials Needed

• Orange cardstock or paper
• Black Sharpie or other black pen
• Scissors
• Clear adhesive tape

Let’s Get Creative

Start by folding a piece of A4 orange cardstock in half and cutting. This will make two paper lanterns. You can use a different size of paper it just needs to be a strip longer than it is wide. Cut a narrow strip off each piece of cardstock (or one if you only want to make one lantern). The narrow strip will be the lantern handle.

Lay the paper/ cardstock flat and draw on tiger stripes. Have a look at our image as an example. Start by drawing a rough line from one side of the paper to the other, leaving a gap and drawing another line next to it, then fill in the gap with the black pen. Next, do some shorter lines that taper in to form a point. These shorter lines can come from both sides of the paper. Draw another line the length of the page but this time attach a shorter tapered line coming out of this long line. Continue until you have covered your entire paper with tiger stripes.

Fold your tiger-striped paper in half so you have a long narrow strip of paper/ cardstock. Take the scissors and snip even lines from the fold up to the free-edges leaving 1-2cm space at the free edge. Continue this for the entire length of the folded paper. If you are left with an uneven piece at the end simply cut it so it is even.

Unfold and then bring the other two sides (the two short ends) together to form the lantern. Secure the two ends together with the clear adhesive tape. Now add the holder. To do this gently bend the long strip of cardstock and insert it at the top of the lantern and secure it into place with more adhesive tape. If necessary the cardstock strip can be shortened with scissors.

Now it is time to display your lantern! It would look wonderful to have multiple lanterns all attached to a ribbon or string and hung from a doorframe or window.

Other Fun Crafts

Have a look at these other fun crafts that we think you will love.

• Toilet Paper Roll Firework Art
• Easy Origami Chick
• Recycled Trash Owl Craft
• Flying Paper Shooting Star

Thank you for stopping by. We hope you enjoyed making this Tiger Paper Lantern craft today!