Chinese New Year Hong Bao Mini Lantern

Earlier this year, I made a multitude of hong bao lanterns – do check out my Chinese New Year Pinterest board for inspiration. This latest hong bao mini lantern is quite unique as you are using wooden skewers to make the frame of the lantern instead of using sticky tape or staples to construct it.

For this mini lantern, I have used small rectangle hong baos (approx. 7.5 cm by 11.5 cm). The material of this hong bao is quite stiff so I didn’t need to insert any additional card to keep the shape.

You can use the long rectangle hong baos (approx. 9.5 cm by 17 cm) as long as you have long wooden skewers/BBQ sticks. My friend happened to have these wooden ice cream sticks from her crafts, which she has no further use for. These sticks are quite short (14 cm) and round (0.5 cm diameter). You can use disposable chopsticks as it has the right thickness to hold onto the lantern/hong bao. As for the top and bottom frame, you can use BBQ sticks as they are quite thin and can be slotted in between the wooden sticks/disposable chopsticks.

This mini lantern measures approximately 14 cm by 15 cm, not including the red string on top and the length of the Chinese knot tassel at the bottom. The rating of difficulty is 1.5 out of 5, which should take roughly 15 minutes to complete one mini lantern.

To make these mini lanterns, you will require:

• 6 rectangle ang baos / red envelopes / hong bao (approx. 7.5 cm by 11.5 cm)
• 12 wooden sticks
• 6 BBQ sticks
• Ruler
• Scissors
• Rubber bands
• Clear packaging tape
• 50 cm red string
• 1 Chinese knot ornament

Step-by-step instructions:

1. Cut four corners away as shown. I did measure 1 cm by 1 cm from each corner, then marked it with a black pen, before making the cut. Repeat for all 5 hong baos.
   

2. Insert the wooden sticks into the hong bao as shown. Repeat for all 5 hong baos.
   

3. Tape down all the flaps at the back of the hong bao. This is to prevent the flap from popping out.

4. Take two hong baos and tie the rubber bands around the wooden sticks as shown.

5. Now continuously tie down all the wooden sticks with rubber bands.
   

6. Insert the BBQ sticks on the top, by going in between the wooden sticks.
   

7. Now insert the BBQ sticks on the bottom, by going in between the wooden sticks.

8. It will form a hexagon shape once the top and bottom sticks are inserted. Trim off the excess part of the BBQ sticks. I used scissors to trim mine so they aren’t very neat. You could sand it down to smooth any rough edges and avoid splinters.

9. Thread the red string on the top of the BBQ sticks and place a Chinese knot tassel at the bottom.

Now it is ready for hanging. So what do you think of these mini lanterns? I hope you like it. If you prefer a much easier mini lantern, try the one I created in 2013 or this one I created in January 2023.

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