Large DIY Lantern

 

Sometimes do you notice that blogger has a mind of its own? I think today is one of those days. lol.

I'll try the best I can to get through this without pulling out my hair or removing other needed body parts.

I've been in this phase lately of wanting to make a lantern or two, or three.

I started off with one idea which I played around with for a few weeks but could never get it to look quite right. I still have the stuff, maybe I'll get it right someday and post it :)

Then I thought of another idea, but it was essentially creating something that I already had and didn't really need more of.

My mind couldn't let go of this stupid 'i have to make a lantern' deal, maybe it was the failure of the first try that kept pressing at my mind to succeed?? I don't know.

Either way...finally my mind can rest assure its done. Although I know darn well everytime I look at the other 'failure' it'll start bugging me again. lol.

 

 I wanted to make this big. I mean BIG. So, I did :)

 To start off, I took the follow cuts off of a 2x2:

4 cuts -miter saw at a 45 degree angle, 36" on the shortest side

4 cuts -miter saw at 45 degree angle, 6" on shortest side.

I then used my nail gun to secure them together, a couple of nails on each side did the trick.

 I then got a 1.5" baluster ( why do they not make this size in any longer piece of wood, ie. pine, you know, why is 2x2 the smallest?) Anyway. This cost about $2 for 30" when I could get a 2x2 for $2 at 10'. I'm just sayin'.

Anyway. I used 10 cuts of these at 10 inches.

 I then used my counter sinker on my drill, then drilled the balusters into the 2x2s.

1 on each corner, and 3 in between.

When I initially started this project, I wanted to do vellum for sure but for some reason I thought (which I should know better) that vellum comes in 12x12, 3 sheets per side. Perfect!

No, vellum is only in 8.5x11".

Totally ruined my design, had to recalculate figures and lengths....go to home depot to get more balusters to find out they didn't have the same kind as the other home depot.

ugh. This was starting to seem like a project fail.

Luckily I have this little thing known as patience, although not much, I do have some :) and I waited until I was by that home depot again and got some.

But then the other problem was the height that I cut the balusters, didn't really work with 8" vellum when they were 10" and most already secured to the frame.

Anyway. I'll get to that later.

 So, finally, this was what the initial frame looked like once it was finally put all together.

 I then painted it. 

Yes, I paint on my kitchen floor.

Yes, the hubs hates me for it

Yes, I give him anxiety

Yes...sometimes...the dog's tail whips into the wet paint.

No, the hubs does not know this but probably suspects

 So, as for that small problem with the vellum only being 8", I found a half inch or so square piece of wood by the molding at home depot, comes in 36" pieces. 

Painted them white. Marked where the vellum would end up fitting, two inches down from the top, and secured it with staples :)

Problem solved!

 Next I cut the velum to fit in between the wood and used a glue stick (and some tape) to secure it.

I then used some cardstock to add to the top little section.

Not my original design, but it turned out even better!

Next, if you are a math whiz and actually paid attention to my lengths and what not, you would know that two 36 inches of half inch wood does not cover two 36 inch and two 6 inch sides.

Does that make sense?

Well. Trust me, it does make sense and it doesn't work.

And I ran out of patience going on home depot runs everyday and not getting this darn thing done :)

So, as you can see, on the sides, there is no vellum, no wood intersecting, just cardstock. lol

This was the lazy man...no patience woman's....way of using what you have when you want something done.

 

And there you have it!

I just put some random candles in the middle and the glow turned out stunning :)

 See? Perfect for a nice dinner...or maybe if I ever want to take it out to the porch, gorgeous during night.

 Because I knew people would be able to see on the inside, I hid all the paper seams with some satin ribbon. Doesn't look too bad. I made sure to overlap the pieces of vellum and paper as to not leave slivers of wood showing through cuz I knew that may look a big ugly when all was said and done. But I guess it probably wouldn't have mattered too much since the wood was white and so was the cardstock on the backside. Anyway.

 Here's the aftermath of the 8" vellum fiasco. Turned out better than I thought it would, and let me bring in the perfect amount of color and pattern.

 I'm adding this one in just in case I do that elusive find Max giveaway I mentioned on my other post. lol.

Here's a look at how it looks on the inside, random candles but.....

outside you could never tell :)

Now I am going to take the next few days and get rid of this headache :) both from blogger...ugh, still....and this lantern. lol.