Hello Friends!  Welcome back to all my Decorate & More friends. If you are visiting for the first time, thank you so much I hope you will continue to come visit me.

I am back to work, but my routine is not back on track yet.   Everything is put away from our beach trip and the laundry is caught up even the ironing is done, but I just can’t get into my daily routine yet.  I feel like I have jet lag or something.  I just can’t get with it and  I hope it is short lived!  Have you every felt like I am feeling when coming back from a vacation?  Is it an age thing?

I am looking at my laundry room while preparing for our tour this Friday and I am wanting a silver lantern for that room.  I decided that I will just make one.  I made lanterns for Christmas gifts last year so I thought I would just make one for myself.  Below I am listing everything I used and steps on how I made it just in case you might want to sit down and make one right along with me.  I will try to make it as easy as I can so you can follow along.  If you can’t figure it out or need help,  please comment your questions below or email me  HERE. I will get back with you as soon as I can.

I found a picture of a lantern on Pinterest I like.  Now, trying to come up with the materials I need to create the lantern.Here is the inspirational photo.

Couldn’t come up with anything for the top to look like the inspirational lantern, but came up with something to make it look close.
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Here is the materials you would need:

1. 5 picture frames (I purchased 5×7 silver frames from the Dollar Tree  (it states on mine 4×6 but that’s picture size the frames are 5×7)
2. Hot glue gun and hot glue sticks
3. Needle nose pliers
4. Wire cutters
5. Small crafting knife (I used an old butter knife)
6. paint – color of your frame (I used silver)
7. canning jar lid (I had both gold and silver canning lids on hand.  I used a silver one)
8. wire coat hanger (you might want to spray paint yours to match the color of your frame if you don’t have that color on hand)

Let’s get started.  

​First what we need to do is remove the picture frames from the packaging.

Now that we have all 5 unwrapped.  We need to remove the back, paper and glass from all 5 frames.

We need to remove all the little metal tabs from the frames with the needle nose pliers.  Pull lightly, they should come out easy.

Put 4 of the frames to the side.  Take the 5th frame and gently take it apart.  The hardest part is getting the first corner, after that it comes a part easy.  What I do is I wiggle a corner until it comes a part.  Just bend back and forth GENTLY until it comes a part.  Each corner has a metal bracket that holds each piece together.  Make sure you do not break or crack the frame trying to force it a part.

After you get your frame a part into 4 pieces.  Take your pliers again and GENTLY pull the metal pieces out.  *Note:  If you pull to hard you can crack the ends and we don’t want that.  We need the angle part to sit properly on the lantern top.

Set the 4 pieces to the side for now.  Let’s glue the lantern’s body together.
We need to put the glass back into the frame first.  Take your frame and face the front down, working with the back of the frame.  Put a little dab of hot glue to each corner and in the center of each strip of the frame.  Do not use a lot of glue.  You do not want the glue to ooze out.  Do this step to all 4 frames.

This would be the time to clean the glass.
Now lets get the lantern’s body put together.  Take the first frames and glue down the longest side of the frame.

Take the glue side and attach it to one side of frame #2.

Do the same with the third frame and attach it to one side of the two frames.
Glue down both ends and take the last frame and attach to the 3 frames.

Now that we have the lantern’s body formed you will want to clean it up.  Mine had a lot of glue webs and the glass had some smudges on it.  Put that to the side after it’s cleaned.
Now the hard part of the whole project.  Take the 4 pieces from the 5th frame and put them in front of you.  Measure 5″ from one end place a mark for a saw line.  I measured one and used that as my template.  *Note: You will need to make a straight cut.  I did an angle first but that didn’t work so I went back and did a straight cut for all 4 leaving one end angled.

Take out your crafting saw or in my case my butter knife and cut on the line until you cut through. Do this with all 4 pieces.

You should have the cut end being a straight cut and the uncut end which is angled.
Bring back the lantern’s body out and place a dab of hot glue to a corner of the lantern.  Then take one cut piece and place the angled side down on the dab of glue.  Hold until the glue cools.  Do that to all 4 sides. * Note.  On the 4 pieces there is a full frame side.  Make sure you have that part facing the same direction so the front will have the frame parts showing. As picture 2 shows down below.

Place hot glue to each outside tip of the top 4 pieces (as shown above in photo 2). Place the canning jar over the 4 pieces evenly.  Hold until glue cools.  Keeping the pieces evenly spaced.

I had a silver coat hanger, don’t know where it came from, but if yours isn’t the color of your lantern just spray paint it to match.
​Take your wire coat hanger and cut a 7″ straight piece with the wire cutters.
Take the straight piece of wire and shape it into a horseshoe.
Curve the ends up.

Squeeze the wire and place inside the canning jar lid so it stays secure.

Just a couple more steps.
​Now take the back of one of the picture frames.
Remove the stand part  and the metal wall bracket.  They come off easy.

Take your hot glue and outline the edge of the back (color side).  Attach it to the bottom of the lantern.

Last step.  Take one of the wall hanger bracket from the back that we removed earlier.  Paint it the color of your choice.  (I painted mine silver to match the frame).  Once it dries, hot glue the piece to one side of the frame that you chose to be the front of the lantern.

So….what do you think?  For $5 and a canning lid you have a nice lantern.  It is your creation!  I hope you make one of these for yourself or maybe do what I did last year and make them for gifts.  Or if you are planning on decorating for a party or wedding….it would be a great inexpensive table centerpiece.

Here is my DIY lantern.  I am very happy with it.  If you made one with me please post yours so I can see your lantern masterpiece!  You can post it on my facebook page – HERE

​Thanks for stopping by today!  Stay in touch for our laundry room tour this Friday.  I hope you will come and tour it with me.