Finding ways to boost wellbeing and feel good at home are imperative towards maintaining healthy bodies and minds.

Getting creative at home is a great way to keep yourselves and your families entertained for hours, whilst stimulating those minds and taking a moment to relax and feel good. Enjoy our quick and easy-to-follow guides for fun, feel-good crafts using bits and pieces from around the house.

"Create at Home" crafts are generally aimed at and adaptable for all ages or to participate in as a family, but some crafts may be more age-appropriate than others.

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Chinese New Year is on Friday 12 February 2021. We are entering the Year of the Ox. Have a go at making a Chinese lantern-inspired garland and get in the celebratory mood. You could use patterns, different colours, or any designs you want to create a beautiful indoor decoration suitable for any occasion.

You will need:

• Coloured paper or white paper
• String or ribbon or wool
• Glue
• Scissors
• Colouring pens

Got everything? Let’s get started!

Start by cutting out strips of paper, approximately 2cm wide. You will need 4 strips of paper. Your paper can be any size, the bigger your starting paper, the bigger your lanterns will turn out. We started with A5 size paper, but you could use A4 for bigger, less fiddly lanterns.

 

 

To stick your lantern together: Lay one strip of paper on the table, add a dab of glue in the middle. Then stick another strip of paper across your first strip to make a cross. Add a dab of glue to the middle again, where the paper crosses. Then stick a third strip of paper down. Add another dab of glue to the crossed area of the paper, and stick your final strip of paper down to make a star shape.

Now pick up one end of the paper, curl it around and put a dab of glue on the end. Glue the opposite end of the paper to it to create a loop of paper.

Put a dab of glue on the top of the new loop of paper, bend the ends of more of your paper strips up and over to create a ball shape. Keep adding glue and bending the ends of the paper to glue them to the top.

Keep going until you have a full lantern. That’s the basics of making them. Now you can create different sizes and decorate them to create a few different lanterns for your garland.

To decorate different lanterns: Cut more strips of paper. You need 4 the same length for each lantern.

Decorate your strips of paper however you like. We did ours using Chinese inspired patterns. Check out our Zentangle blog for more pattern ideas.

Glue the strips of paper together into the star shape like before. Make sure your decorations are facing down when you glue them together so that the decorations are on the outside when you curl them up to make the lantern shape.

Glue the ends of the paper up and over to make your lantern shape again.

Make lots of different lanterns – you could make them all the same size, or lots of different colours. The length of your strips of paper decides how big your lantern will be. Longer strips of paper mean bigger lanterns.

Thread your string through the lanterns to create your garland.

There you have it! You could make Chinese-inspired lanterns for Chinese New Year. Or you could decorate them with Easter-themed pictures or patterns for Easter. Or what about writing Happy Birthday on the strips of paper to make it a Birthday garland? Get creative for any occasion!