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Lesson Info
Decorating Paper Lanterns
Now that we've got our centerpiece is our boot nears and kearsarge is our event backdrop, we're going to end up with some lovely hanging lanterns, ines and this is really just another very simple way for you to apply these flowers to your event decor. There are a couple of different paper style lanterns that are available, the ones that have been around the longest and perhaps where all the most familiar with are the chinese or the bamboo style lanterns they have ridges all the way around the top they expand vertically and they usually have a metal structure that you slipped down inside and that kind of keeps them open and full. So the style of paper lanterns that we're going to be using here today, our accordion style and I just love them because they open they open around the frame is built into them. They come together at the section the frame forms into a little v that is a hanging aid, and they usually come with a little piece of metal twist tie so you can simply secure those two ...
pieces together and hold it open. Now occasionally in handling these, you will notice that it'll get dinged or pressed in like that you can simply press it from the inside to open it back up. They are relatively sturdy in that regard now I have found with these paper flowers they're not super small, but they're definitely smaller than the flowers that we have been creating for the center pieces. They do still have a little bit of weight and is much as I think I would like tio hang them all over. I have found that hanging one or two up near the top of the hook really works best balance wise, eso that when you've got them hanging there, nothing is sort of like lopsided or hanging at an odd angle. But again, for these, I'm just gonna be adding a little bit of hot glue and pressing it on, so simply taking if we could keep that guy from rolling away on me, going to add a little bit of hot glue to the underside here, I'm just going to take a position up towards the top and hold it there for a second. Obviously, because this is already constructed, I can't fit my hand in through the little top of the lantern to press on the back side, so I just want to hold it stable for a few seconds in order for it to dry enough to feel like it's set up and it's not going to go anywhere now, if it is a concern, you certainly can take perhaps a ruler or a longer implement like a wooden spoon, perhaps slided in through the top of that opening just give a little pressure on the back side, it would be the inside of the lantern in the backside of the flower, but it's just a nice way to kind of pull those in and coordinate with all of the floral day cores that we've been creating during the course of the class. Now, I think what I'm going to do here is I'm just going to empty out this little bowl and use that stand that going to do it? Yes, there we go. Excellent. One thing you may want to consider if you're going to be having paper lanterns at your event is to add a little illumination to the interior of them. There are relatively inexpensive lantern sets that you can purchase that are either led lights. Most of them are battery pack. Some of them hang on a string that you can slip down into them, but I wanted to show you a really simple work around using little battery operated tea lights. Now these obviously do not give off an enormous amount of light, but if you're hanging these up, say, on your patio and it's, an evening event, you're getting excuse me, you're going to get a really lovely little glow from them, and the way we're going to go about doing that is I'm going to take a little length of floral wire and I'm going to guess to mate let's see let's go about this is probably about roughly between fourteen and sixteen inches, and I'm going to give it a little snip there and I am basically going to form a little bit of a u shape now if you do have floral wire stems left over, that could be another application for them. You can just kind of make a u shape with that as well. The floral wire, a zay described earlier that we were using during flower construction, is a much thinner gray. This is a little bit sturdier flora wire that comes on a spool it's just a different format, and this is also not cloth wrapped like the floral wire that we were using for the flowers doesn't really matter either way is great. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take the little battery operated t light and kind of crooked around the bottom here give it a little twist on one side and then I am going to secure that with some of our masking tape here tear off a little bits this doesn't have to be pretty because it's going to be inside the lantern no one is ever going to see it and then basically folding this up, I'm twisting these wires together a little bit and I'm creating a little bit of a hook and the idea behind this is then you can simply feed it down into the top of your lantern and hook that over that wire structure the battery operated lights they vary in the amount of time it will tell you on the packaging how long they'll actually last for um but it's almost guaranteed to be the length of your events you know most events or what for five hours and there's no way that battery's going to die before then these guys you confined all over the place I've even found them at the the dollar store you can find it at the hardware store to home decor store on dso once I've done that I want to be ableto hang it up and what I'm going to be using is some really it's inexpensive polly ribbon I got it at a floral supply store it's less expensive and say some of the finer satin ribbons you might be using for gift packaging or what not um well we've got a lovely strands hanging here and I'm just going to slip one of them through the metal top and then we'll just give those two sides or not I really do like having it where the tales of the ribbon are facing downward because I think it's nice to have them trail over the side of your lantern it gives like a nice little added you mentioned that you just want to give them a little trim now I would say that you do not need tio if you're if you're doing a grouping of thes there's no need necessarily to put flowers on absolutely every single one I think they would look lovely sort of like strong intermittently with just regular ones that have the ribbon trailing down over the side. One thing you might even want to consider to kind of carry through this floral motif is taking some of the smaller leaves that you have made and perhaps hot gluing them onto the tales of the ribbon just kind of is if they were, say, trailing vines let's, go ahead and attach one of those guys on there just kind of get a sense of what that looks like when you think they're sweet and if you had these, especially in mass I think all of these decor, all of these decorative items really look great when they're in groupings. Um I also wanted to say that if you don't have a situation set up in your home or your event space where you can suspend them directly down from the ceiling as we've been doing here, you can put together something of a paper lantern chandelier and the way you might do that is gathering together all of your oh, thank you, kate gathering together all of your lanterns and instead of having them individually hung, you see, I know I have it here somewhere. You might string them all through one central hoop. So what they end up doing is arresting against one another, and it kind of forms almost this a big chandelier, it's a really nice focal point. Foreign events on dh this can then just if you have just one place that you might be ableto hanging from the ceiling and you want to be mindful, obviously, of the height of these, when you're hanging them in an event space, if they're going above, say, a buffet table, you can hang them a little bit lower if you're going to have them in a more public space where your guests are wandering around want to just keep him a little bit higher. So the no one's bumping their heads on them? Yeah. Have you ever attempted to make these lanterns yourself? They do look fairly complicated. You know what? I have not. And they are relief about expensive. And so I have just chosen to purchase them. That would be a really challenging project. And get with you to find d I y project to tackle we ever tried maybe one of the electronic. Um, tea lights in the land. They do have some that are actually built specifically for the lanterns, which work quite well. And I think some of the led one's might even be a little bit brighter. So that is something to consider when you're shopping for those tea lights. Really, the purpose of me showing you how to do it with the floral wire is just to have an inexpensive work around. If you don't have access to those sets that are made specifically for the lanterns.
Class Materials
bonus material with purchase
Ratings and Reviews
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Thank you to Robert for giving me inspiration. The flowers were beautiful and it has motivated me to go out and purchase the supplies to make some of the projects. I feel that his voice was relaxing and he took his time in explaining how to do the projects. I would definitely make these not only for events but for personal use as well. Great job. It's obvious that he has been doing this for some time,
Elle
Excellent class! It was easy to follow along and create the items exactly as demonstrated.
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