This is my Chinese New Year ang pow flower lantern tutorial. If you would like to learn about other lantern designs I had made previously, do take a look at my Pinterest board for Chinese New Year.
This year I am challenging myself to make more complicated Chinese New Year lanterns using ang pows. Last year, when I went back to Singapore, I bought back a bag of ang pow and craft materials – as much as I could stuff in our luggage in fact! As it was not the peak season to buy ang pow, I was very limit to the designs that I could find.
You should allow a couple of hours to make this lantern. For me, it took me a few nights just to get things ready!
Materials:
- 60 small size square ang pows
- 60 middle size square ang pows
- Stapler & scissors
- Red strings
For this lantern, unfortunately I didn’t have enough of the same ang pow, so I had to make do with what I had. I have quite a lot of rectangle ang pows, so in the end I had to cut all my ang pows into squares. So it is preferable to have square ang pows to start with. Anyway, I cut the ang pow to these sizes: 6.5 cm by 6.5 cm and 8.5 cm by 8.5 cm. For the small size square, try to choose lighter colour ang pow like pink or yellow. As for the middle size, choose the traditional red ang pow.
Step:
- Place the small square onto the middle size and slight fold into triangle shape. Staple it. This is to create the flower petal.
- Repeat, and when you have made five petals, join them together by stapling the petals as shown to make one flower. Now you have to make another 11 flowers using the same method.
- Next join five flowers together using the stapler but when you join the first and fifth flowers, staple the middle petal from first flower to the second petal from the fifth flower.
- Once the ring of flowers is complete, join one flower on the top of the ring using one petal to join with two petals from the flower ring. This is the top part of the lantern. Do remember to thread in your string with a knot in the middle if you like to hang it.
- Now repeat the same by creating another flower ring. This is the bottom part of the lantern. Note, it’s much easier to thread any strings before you join any of the parts of the lantern together.
- Next join the top and bottom together. This part is quite complicated but can be worked out.
I’m not entirely happy with it because it’s so patchy due to the mix of types of ang pow but I did as best I could with the materials I had! It is great for decoration though!
