Tiki Weekend: Tiki Lantern Tutorial

Hello cupcakes!
The response to Tiki Weekend has been overwhelming!  You've been messaging me and e-mailing to demand more photos.  Trust me, you'll get them this week.  
Our tiki votives were a huge hit with y'all, so I thought to tide you over,  you might enjoy a tutorial...authored by my friend and frequent collaborator: Allison Beilke.  Enjoy!

Hello lovely Goldiblog readers! I like to consider myself Erin’s silent design partner in crime, but today it’s my turn to guest post. With hopefully more posts to come! As you know, Erin is a very crafty lady and together we crafted many decorations for our summer, retro-fabulous Tiki party. We were inspired by many great decoration tutorials we found on various blogs, but we also came up with our own original.

With that I give to you… DIY Tiki Lanterns! It’s really quite easy (and cheap!) and you can customize it for virtually any event or holiday of your choosing. You could even give them away as party favors.

You will need:

Plain, GLASS juice glasses (no plastic since they’re for burning candles)

Mod Podge

Paintbrushes or sponge brushes

Solid color tissue paper

Contact paper

Exacto knife

Pen or pencil

Carbon transfer paper (optional)

Acrylic paint

Acrylic gloss or matte medium

First, pick up a couple inexpensive plain, glass juice glasses. We found some that were 5” tall, but you could certainly use small shot glasses too. Tissue paper is next. This will serve as the first layer so think about what colors you want to glow through when the candles are lit. Lie the glass on the tissue paper to measure a strip that will cover the whole glass and cut it out.

Paint on Mod Podge and carefully apply the tissue paper to the glass. (It’s ok if this doesn’t turn out perfect because it gets covered up and sometimes texture makes for interesting results!) Let this dry for a few hours. I would recommend coming back and putting on an outer coat of Mod Podge, then let it dry overnight.

Now you’re ready for the fun part! Decide what design you’d like to show through when lit. I drew some tiki faces that were pretty basic shapes and printed from my computer. You can download the template here for your own tropically-themed party. Transfer the designs onto contact paper either using carbon paper or a pencil to shade the back of the paper with the design on it and trace onto contact paper. Next cut out the shapes from the contact paper with an exacto knife and apply to your tissue paper lined glasses.

Get out your acrylic paint (we used burnt sienna) and mix a small amount with the acrylic medium. You want a consistency that has a nice amount of color for coverage, but the medium will give is some transparency for the light to come through. Paint over the entire glass, including the contact paper. Let dry overnight. The next day is REALLY the fun part. Peel back the contact paper shapes, drop in some tea lights and prepare to be amazed!  

They really added to the whimsical ambiance of our party.  We had a blast making them and we hope you do too!