Oiled Paper Lantern

Still using crayons, we wanted to use the drippings to design a paper lantern! If you haven't already read our previous post about crayon melting, we'll just repeat the instructions here. But what is really awesome is the use of cooking oil to make the paper translucent and shiny.

Light On

Light Off

You need a piece of paper for the lantern. Grab some of those crayons, a candle and a match/lighter for the design. Cooking oil and a brush (try to get a wide one to get the job more quickly) will be used to afterwards.

Light the candle and hold your crayon (peel the paper off first) over the flame for a few seconds before shaking it a bit over the paper. The drippings will make your design.

Don't do this project in the dark!

 Here's a close-up shot of the melted crayon wax:

And we used two colors, the red and blue again. (Captain America on the brain, maybe?)

 

Dip your brush into the cooking oil, like so:

Spread the oil onto the paper. You'll notice the paper becomes more translucent than opaque. From time to time lift up the paper from the newspaper, so the design of the newspaper doesn't stick onto the paper (just in case!).

 Cover the whole surface.

We shone a flashlight and then used flash on the camera to take this picture:

And then without flash, this is how it looks like:

But the oiled paper lamp looks really lovely with the lit candle inside it. 

Let there be light!