Christmas Decorations 2022 Part 3

The teddy bears have already been making lots of decorations for Christmas. Charlie has helped out on several of them but he just felt that he would like to make something all by himself - after all, he is the builder bear!! And he has the hi-vis jacket to prove it!

He had looked around the shops at other Christmas decorations and decided he really liked the Christmas Lanterns. They are Christmassy scenes with cut-out areas in them that a light will shine through when it is turned on, and bring the whole scene to life.

But rather than just buying a Christmas lantern that someone else had made, he decided he could make one for himself. The first thing he needed to do was to design his scene. He found lots of different house shapes and trees, a crescent moon and some star pictures on his computer and printed them off.

Then he cut them out and moved the shapes around on a piece of white paper so that they made a night-time scene of houses in woodland with the moon and stars above. When they were in their final positions, he glued them onto the white paper - this would be his template.

Then he needed all sorts of other things to make the lantern. So he looked in all the craft boxes that the bears share, and eventually found everything he needed.

Here is his list:

Scene Template, Battery-operated Candle or Tealights, Black A4 Card, Coloured Tissue Paper, Glue, Sticky Tape, Craft Knife or Scissors, Metal Ruler, White Chalk, Paper Fasteners, Hole Punch

Next he cut out areas from his white template of the things he wanted the light to shine through. So he cut the windows and doors from the houses, and cut out the crescent moon and all the stars. He also cut small holes all over the trees so that when light shone through them they would look like Christmas tree lights.

Then he placed his white cut-out template over his piece of black card and drew through the cut-outs with white chalk so that he could see where he needed to cut out parts of the black card.

When he had done that he then had to decide what colours would look nice shining through all the cut-out areas. He decided on yellow for the moon and stars, orange for the windows and doors, and blue and pink for the lights on the trees. He then glued tissue paper of the matching colour behind the relevant cut-outs in the black card.

His idea was that the scene would be lit from behind by a battery-operated candle - real candles would not be safe near to all that paper!! But he needed to make the scene wrap around the candle. How was he going to do that? Good job he's a master builder! He placed the white paper with the cut-outs over the black card with the cut-outs so that they matched exactly. Then he very carefully punched holes in the four corners, and the centre sides of both pieces, making sure they all still lined up exactly.

Then he carefully curved the whole thing round to make a tube until the holes matched up. He put paper fasteners through the holes and fixed them in place.

Then he placed the tube over the candle. There it was - his finished lantern!

But what would it look like lit up? He had to wait until it was nearly night-time before it was dark enough to turn the candle on. When he did he was absolutely delighted - yellow light shone from the moon and stars and orange light poured out of the doors and windows! There was even a gentle glow of blue and pink from the decorated trees!

When the other bears saw what Charlie had made they were extremely impressed. "Gosh, Charlie!" said Richard, "that is so beautiful!" And all the other bears agreed.

Maybe you would like to make your own Christmas lantern too! Download Charlie's template and instructions by clicking here.

Of course, you don't have to do the exact same scene as Charlie - change things around, choose different colours in different areas, and maybe add some other cut-outs to your scene - how about a tiny sleigh and reindeer up in the night sky! Have fun!