St Martin Paper Mache Lantern

Here is another type of St Martin lantern the children have made ~ this time using paper mache. This paper mache lantern has a 'porthole' at the front with a St Martin image on it as well as 7 'peaks' around the porthole with a hole at the top of each peak, representing St Martin being filled with the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Here are the lanterns we made the day before, in my opinion these are the easiest make and the most eye catching, so click over to the posting on how to make them, where you can also hear the St Martin song that goes with them and the lyrics.

Here is the completed St Martin paper mache lantern in the daylight (not quite finished actually, hadn't finished the top of the latern, you'll see that picture futher on.)

We started with a ballon and then we traced our porthole with a felt pen, placing it central on the balloon. You can see the paper we are using on the sides, we used tissue paper. We SHOULD have had two lanterns to show you, but one of the children did not put enough paper layers on the balloon, so when it dried and the balloon popped, it imploded. So make sure that with this thin paper, you put on enough layers for the balloon to hold together.

We used store bought paper mache glue but I wish I had made my own. I will next time. The layers of paper were glued on to the balloon, making sure that we did not glue into the porthole area.

This is how it should look when completed ~ remember, make sure you have a good thickness with this thin, tissue paper! We used one full packet ($1.50) for each balloon.

Next step was to make the 'porthole' we used some of the tracing paper we had left over from the other St Martin lantern project. The circle of paper had to be about 3 inches (7-8cms) wider than the porthole itself. The children then traced the image below:

HT: Heraldry of the World ...onto the tracing paper and then coloured it in with crayons.

With a lead pencil, lightly mark out the inner circle....

Then carefully cut inward, around the circle, making sure you do not go beyond the inner circle, then once you have done that, you can rub out the inner circle marked with pencil.

Place that porthole over the paper mache balloon, where the porthole is marked out to go, then start glueing the sides down, quickly followed by glueing more tissue paper over the top to firmly hold the sides in place.

It should look like this. Now onto sticking the 7 peaks around the paper mache. (You may be happy enough to leave it without the peaks of course, depending on your time and resources.)

I just grabbed a egg carton tray and cut out individual peaks like this:

The children made holes in the top of each peak, we were hoping that the light would come out of each peak, it does, but not alot of light.

Each peak was paper mached around the porthole, securing them to the balloon.

The tissue paper was placed all over the peaks like this, with only the little hole showing at the top.

We hung the balloons out to dry (that is where one popped and imploded due to not having enough tissue paper around it.) and then when they were dry, it was brought in, the balloon was popped and the top cut out. Four paper fasterners were placed around the opening with wool attached to them.

Here it is, all lit up and ready to go!!