Paper Lantern Template

How to make the panel lantern

1. Print on card at 100%. Choose “Actual size” in the print dialog and lay a ruler on the 50 mm bar at the foot of the sheet. Card of 160 to 220 g/m² (60 to 80 lb cover) holds its shape and still cuts cleanly with a craft knife.
2. Cut the windows first, while the sheet is flat, with a sharp craft knife on a cutting mat: inside corners first, then the long edges. Cut the outline last, with scissors.
3. Score every dashed line with a dry ballpoint along a ruler, then fold. Dash-dot lines are mountain folds (the printed side stays outside); plain dashes are valley folds.
4. Glue the vellum (or tracing paper, or baking parchment) inside each half, over the holes. It spreads the light into an even glow and hides the bulb.
5. Close the walls: the grey tab of each half glues behind the first panel of the other half. Push the base in from below, tabs up, and glue the tabs to the inside of the walls.
6. Fold the lid (skirts down, corner tabs in, glued behind the next skirt) and set it on top. It lifts off to switch the light on and off.

The star lantern goes together the same way, with one difference: the folds alternate, mountain at each of the five tips and valley at each inner corner, so the walls zigzag into a star. The round lantern: glue each gore’s tabs behind the edge of the next, a few tabs at a time from the middle outwards, until the eighth closes the ball; then wrap the gold bands round the top and bottom openings, glue the base inside the bottom, roll the tassel and tie it under the base with the cord that goes up through the two holes in the top band.

Questions

Is the Christmas lantern template free, and is there a PDF?

Yes, all five lanterns are free, with no sign-up and nothing to install. “Download PDF” makes the whole lantern as an A4 or US Letter PDF (the page picks the size your device’s language suggests; switch it under Paper), with every sheet at true size and at least 8 mm of white round the edge so home printers do not clip it. “PNG, 300 dpi” saves the sheet you are looking at as an image, for printers or apps that do not take PDFs.

How do I make the easy paper lantern with kids?

Choose Kids’ slit lantern and print one sheet. (1) Colour it in first if you chose Colour-in. (2) Fold it in half along the long line, printed side out. (3) Cut along each slit line from the fold up to the dot marked “stop”; an adult can start the cuts, and children of about 5 can finish them with safety scissors. (4) Open it, roll it into a tube with the grey strip inside, and staple or glue the top and bottom. (5) Staple the handle inside the top. Press the lantern gently down from the top and the strips bow out. A finished slit lantern is about 7 cm across and 12 cm tall.

How does the star lantern work?

It is a star-shaped tube: ten wall panels round a five-point star about 12 cm across, printed as two halves of five panels so each fits on one sheet. Each panel has stars, trees or snowflakes cut out. The two halves join with their glue tabs into one zigzag ring, and a star-shaped base glues inside the bottom. Light it from the open top. For a flat 3D star with points to hang up, the paper star template folds one from a net.

Can I put a real candle in a paper lantern?

No. Battery lights only. Card catches fire, and a tea-light flame heats the walls a few centimetres away within minutes. Every lantern here leaves room for a standard 38 mm battery LED tea light with at least 5 mm of air all round (16 mm in the 4-sided and star lanterns, 15 mm in the kids’ lantern, 18 mm in the round one and 24 mm in the 6-sided one), and a battery fairy-light string works too.

How big are the lanterns?

Can I cut it with a Cricut or Silhouette?

Yes. “SVG cut file” saves the sheet you are looking at at true size in millimetres, cut lines in one group and fold lines in another so you can set them to score. Silhouette Studio’s free Basic Edition does not open SVG, so “DXF (Silhouette)” saves the same lines in millimetres, cut on layer CUT and folds on layer SCORE. The name’s 3.2 mm dots and the small village windows are at the limit of what a blade cuts cleanly in card; a 1/8 in hole punch does the dots faster by hand.

What is a parol, and how do I make this one?

A parol (from the Spanish farol, lantern) is the Philippine Christmas star: a five-point star lantern hung in windows, on porches and along streets from September to January, traditionally a bamboo frame covered in thin Japanese paper (papel de Hapon) with two paper tails trailing from its lower points. The star stands for the Star of Bethlehem and goes up for the Simbang Gabi dawn masses before Christmas. San Fernando in Pampanga is famous for giant electric parols with thousands of lights; this one is the classic home version.

Choose Parol and type a size from 30 to 60 cm, measured from any tip to a tip that is not next to it (the star’s width). The frame is the classic star of five strips running tip to tip, so each face has five point windows and a pentagon in the middle. A 40 cm parol takes 16 A4 sheets: each frame is tiled over six sheets that you trim along the solid line and lay over the grey glue strip of the next sheet, matching the red join marks. Then: (1) cut the six windows out of both frames; (2) cut the tissue or cellophane with the point and centre templates, which are each window plus a 5 mm glue margin, and glue them behind the windows, five colours if you like; (3) fold the ten spacer tubes and glue them between the frames on the printed squares; (4) on 3D, glue the ten side walls round the edge, each with its own window panel, which closes the star into a box that also glows from the sides; (5) glue the centre ring on each face and the tails behind the two lower points. The frames are card (200 to 250 g/m²); a frame larger than 50 cm is stiffer from 300 g/m² card or with a garden cane taped along the back. A card parol is for indoors or a covered porch: rain finishes it.

Light it with battery LEDs only: a battery fairy-light string or puck light taped to the back frame. Never a candle, and never a mains bulb that gets hot, inside paper.

Is there a lantern for Lunar New Year?

Yes: Round lantern is the round red lantern shape hung for the Spring Festival and the Lantern Festival, with gold bands, a plum blossom cut out of each of its eight gores and a paper tassel. It carries no lettering, so it suits any family and any classroom. Lunar New Year 2027 falls on Saturday 6 February 2027 (the second new moon after the December solstice, in China’s time zone), when the Year of the Goat begins.