Whimsy Stamps ~ Halloween Lantern Adventure

Hey friends, I am back today with a super fun Halloween Candle Lantern I've created from scratch. I had the idea to use the shape of the fabulous big tag die from Whimsy, which measures 6 inches high, as the lantern windows, so grabbed a bunch of black cardstock trimmed to size, allowing a border for attaching and set about creating my lantern silhouette scenes. 

Each scene I endeavoured to make interesting purely for the silhouette once the light was on behind it. There are a couple which have a little extra detail better seen in natural light. The gravestone details on the panel with the large gravestone and the werewolf scene also has some lovely textures on the moon and cliff face which are not seen in silhouette, so here's a peak in natural light to better show those details. Pop it up full size for a crisper picture. 

In order to use the tag die, I had to make this lantern quite large, so the base was free hand cut from a large hexagon, which I printed so the sides would be exactly 4 inches wide. If you were measuring the hexagon base across tip to tip, it's 8 inches across, flat side to flat side is 6 7/8 inches wide. So it's a big lantern, a real Halloween Table Centrepiece. The sides of the lantern measure 8 inches high. The lantern apertures as mentioned earlier are the size of the largest tag die from Whimsy's Mini Slimline Tags collection, so measure 6 inches high. Which means I had a great mini canvas from each panel to create little diecut Halloween scenes as seen in the daylight pictures above. Each scene I kept very simple, with only a few elements on each, so there was plenty of space for the light to shine through and illuminate the scene. 

I managed to take some shots in lower light which really show the drama of the panels. I have to say I'm really delighted with how well this came together, I'm not much of an engineer, so working out the sizes of everything was quite a challenge for me to get right and it came together so well. Needing only a tiny trim of cotton lace around the top to obscure any slight differences in the finished heights of the panels. Also, just a lovely way to complete the lamp and give it a finished look.

I snapped a few pics as I was working through the build of this lantern, so I've added them above to give you a visual of some of the different steps and elements, not a true step by step, but hopefully you can follow. It shows the hexagon template I printed to use as the cutting pattern for my black hexagon base you seen in the last photo above. I tacked the template to the wrong side of the black cardstock, so I didn't damage the face you'd see inside the lantern and carefully cut all the edges. I used my big guillotine, which you see in all the pics above. Once I'd diecut all the tags from the black cardstock panels, the third photo in, shows the tag and the aperture. I have a bunch of tags ready for decorating now. What I don't show above is adding the vellum inserts onto the panels, but if you look closely at some of the standing lanterns, you can see a glimpse of the tape added just around the sides of the tag shape inside the lantern, which was enough to hold the panels in place, without having a very visible line of glue around the top of the lantern. 

The above shots show the lantern from the top and the bottom (I know, I know, thank you Captain Obvious, hehe), but I wanted to show you the finishes. You can see the tabs with the corners clipped fit nicely along the hexagon base and sit well giving a nice strong base. From the top, you can see not just the gluing of the vellum panels which I spoke about earlier, but also all the tabs glued together. Rather than try to glue the tabs flat on one side, I let them connect together and remain facing into the centre of the lantern. I felt this would avoid any pulling. 

Finally a night shot with my favourite panel. I just love this 'Elvira-like' character Whimsy created, I think she's so fun and worked brilliantly for this silhouette creation. The fabulous retro street lamp and kooky moon are from the same die set and I added just one little batty friend, to finish the scene. I will of course share all the sets I've used in creating this lantern as thumbnails below for easy reference.

I had such fun creating this lantern, so I hope you've enjoyed a little walk through my process. I will be back soon with another crafty adventure. Thank you for stopping in to visit me today, I appreciate it so much. I wish you a wonderful week and happy crafting. Hugs xoxo

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