Lanterns come in all shapes and sizes. They are also made out of all kinds of material. I love every one I have seen, but the wood lanterns are my favorite. I feel like they are more timeless. They won’t go out of style. They will always look good in our home (even when I want to change things up, which happens more often than not). When I started seeing lanterns in stores that I loved, I took photos of them and studied them because I knew we could make them at home. We have made a few different lanterns now so I wanted to share them on the blog.
I also wanted to share them LIVE on the Facebook page. Matt and I are having a lot of fun with our LIVE Facebook projects and we decided DIY lanterns would be a great project to share on there too. We had scrap wood in the garage that was left over from previous projects that we wanted to use. Lanterns were perfect for the pieces we had.
When I share projects like this, I want to inspire you to try DIY projects to decorate your home. All of the projects we share can be adapted to what you have on hand. If you don’t have a stash of scrap wood, you can buy it at your local home improvement store to create the same thing.
The DIY lanterns would be beautiful with new wood, but we wanted to use up the scrap wood we had in the garage. The scrap wood wasn’t in perfect condition, so I planned on painting the lanterns. Any time we have left over wood pieces in good condition, we come up with ways to use them instead of throwing them out.
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Supplies You Need To Make DIY Lanterns:
Miter Saw
Table Saw
Nail Gun
Tape Measure
Wood
Wood Finial
Knobs
“Collard Greens” Dixie Belle Paint
“Palmetto” Dixie Belle Paint
When we do a DIY project like this, I usually come up with the design and Matt makes it come to life. This time, all I had to do was come up with the size of the lanterns and he designed them himself. He might not admit it, but Matt loves all aspects of the DIY projects and whenever he wants to run with an idea, I support it 100%. He came up with two different ways to make these lanterns. I am having a hard time picking a favorite.
Instead of writing a long tutorial on how we made these lanterns, you can watch us put one together in the video we recorded live from the Facebook page:
The lanterns came out great! When we make them again, I want to use new wood so I can stain them.
Lanterns are great for so many uses. I can literally think of twenty things you could put in them right now.
Okay, I am going to list twenty things that comes to my mind right now:
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real pumpkins
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faux pumpkins
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small Christmas trees
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faux candles
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small dishes
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plants
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pots
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jars
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potpourri
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floral stems
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twinkle lights
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faux snow and miniatures around Christmas
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vintage truck
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gourds
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succulents
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birds nests
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ornaments
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pine cones
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shells
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flowers
Those are just the things that came to me as I am sitting here. I am sure you could come up with twenty more.
I am not sure where these lanterns will end up or what I will put in them, but they are a lot of fun to make and decorate with.
Do you have lanterns in your decor? What do you put in them?
I love watching your videos, so informative and easy to follow thanx
Thank you!
Hi There! Could you provide the cut dimensions please?
That should be in the video? It will depend on how small or tall you want them and how much wood you have.
I’ve watched the video but I don’t see any measurements on the wood pieces
I didn’t share measurements for this because it will depend on how big or small you want them. We are always using scrap wood and make them for what we have. I just shared the process so you know how to do it once you decide on the size you want to make them.
These are cute! I am building an entertainment center in our basement so I definitely have some scraps of wood, I may have to try this!
Tania
YAY! Easy and cute way to use scrap wood!