Diwali Lantern Crafts for Kids

Diwali is known as the Festival of Light, and it’s all about light overcoming darkness, so it makes sense that lanterns would be a big part of the celebration. There are lots of fun ways to make lanterns at home or in the classroom to celebrate, so let’s look at some Diwali lantern craft ideas that you can of course use any other time of the year as well.

This cute lantern from The Joy of Sharing was the one that got me started thinking about diy lantern crafts. It’s made with tracing paper and Popsicle sticks, and little ones can at least help with the coloring if not putting it all together.

The paper lantern at Artsy Craftsy Mom involves cutting windows out of card stock that are then decorated with tissue paper and stickers. Adults can do the cutting while kids of any age can help decorate. A printable template is included to help you with the cutting. She also has a cute classic paper lantern made with glitter paper for extra fun.

Likewise with this one that uses cardboard as the frame from The Crafty Angels. You can cut out the pieces and let kids decorate with yarn, beads or anything else on a string that they might want to add.

For older kids I found a few videos of different kinds of lanterns that are really cool but might take more patience and dexterity than our little ones have. The Kandil lamp from Craft Nifty Creations (the one with the blue flowers shown above) is mostly a lot of gluing. Punekar Sneha has one made with lots of paper loops, which little kids could help with ones the strips are cut. And this gorgeous origami lamp from Being Artsy starts with a piece of posterboard that’s cut and folded to lovely result.

My Cool World Arts and Activities on Teachers Pay Teachers has a printable Diwali lantern kids can color and then make into a lantern. These would be lovely as classroom decorations.

Also be sure to check out some Diwali printables, coloring pages and a cute book about Diwali.

I love the look of mesh tops for summer, but I don’t know that I would ever actually wear one that’s full of giant holes, even though I admit they look cool (in both senses of the word) on other people.

What I would wear, though, is something that’s still lacy but maybe a little bit more subdued, like this chevron lace knit top from Yarnspirations.

This easy to knit T-shirt style top is worked flat in two pieces from the bottom up, using and easy lace pattern that’s a repeat of 10 stitches and four rows (though the wrong side rows are just purled, so there’s only two rows you need to learn the pattern on).

It has little cap sleeves that are worked as part of the top by casting on stitches where you need them.

If you’re new to lace knitting this is a good one to try because the pattern includes both written and charted instructions, and the only skills you need are yarn over, knit two together, slip slip knit and slip 1 knit 2 together pass the slipped stitch over (which makes a centered decrease).

There are four size options available (which they claim is enough to cover XS to 5XL), with finished chest measurements ranging from 38.5 inches (that’s 98 cm) to 59 inches, or 150 cm. The amount of ease would vary widely depending on your size and the size garment you choose. For example the largest size is said to fit a chest measurement from 5258 inches/132-147.4 cm, which gives you a range of ease from 1-7 inches, or 2.5 to 17.78 cm, depending on your size. Just something to be aware of when you think about how you want it to fit.

The project calls for Red Heart Cotton Breeze yarn, which isn’t a yarn I’ve tried yet, but it’s a DK weight acrylic and cotton blend, which should make a lightweight top that’s great for summer.

Grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.

[Photo: Yarnspirations]

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