If the Christmas season makes you feel like crafting, add these DIY Christmas lanterns to your holiday display. Made from mason jars, these Christmas lanterns are simple but so magical!
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This week, we worked on making Christmas lanterns. Out came more mason jars and paint, and now we have a set of flickering blue luminaries on our windowsill. I hope they will make our winter evenings cozier and more magical.
My favourite part of this project was making the designs. I have a fascination with little town silhouettes with clock towers, as you may have noticed in my other projects like this paper Christmas village.
But there are some other characters in this project – a reindeer couple is carrying a sleigh in the sky, and the third reindeer is hiding behind the tree on the last lantern. And, of course, Santa Claus is in the sleigh as well!
Do you know what characters come at Christmas time in other parts of the world? Learn about thirteen mischievous trolls from Iceland, a half-goat and half-demon from Austria, and a Christmas witch from Italy with Christmas around the world paper dolls!
Christmas Lantern Designs
You can download the design here and scale it to the right size for your jars, or you can make your own. This is a good project for adults and children to collaborate on.
Update! Since making these lanterns, we have made other designs and explored new techniques:
Halloween Mason Jar Lanterns: Elegantly eerie!
Fairy Mason Jar Lanterns: Made with papercuts!
Fairy-Tale Mason Jar Lanterns: Video tutorial is included in this one.
Materials for Making DIY Christmas Lanterns
– jars of different sizes and shapes (in addition to a pair of canning jars, here you can see featured a pickle jar and a spice jar)
– a can of blue spray paint (I used Rust-Oleum Brilliant Blue Spray Paint
– paint marker (I used Uchida Deco Color Fine Point Paint Marker
How to Make DIY Christmas Lanterns
1. Wash your jars thoroughly as any oily residue will interfere with paint adhesion.
2. Spray paint the outsides of the jars. For this project, I used Rust-Oleum Brilliant Blue Spray Paint
3. Now, there are FOUR ways of putting the design onto the jars to make these DIY Christmas lanterns. You can draw, paint, cut – or simply use vinyl! Depends on what you feel most comfortable with.
DRAW: This was how the original lanterns were made. If you use our design, print it and insert it inside the jar. You will be able to see it through the thin layer of paint as you can see in the picture above. The first time I made these jars a few years ago, I used paint markers, as you can see in the picture above: Uchida Deco Color Extra Fine Point Paint Marker
PAINT: Recently, I’ve also discovered another way of putting my designs onto my DIY lanterns. Try mixing white Elmer’s glue with black Acrylic paint – the resulting mixture is ideal for painting on glass! The recipe and the full tutorial with the video are here. Again, you need to print our design, insert it inside the jar and paint with a small brush on the outside of the jar.
CUT AND GLUE: After you printed the designs, cut them out with scissors and glue them onto the sprayed jars. The Fairyland lanterns were done using this technique, and so were the Fairy-Tale lanterns (there is a video tutorial included with these ones). Do you have a Silhouette machine for cutting silhouettes? You can use this tutorial. Cricut? The tutorial is here.
PRINT ON VINYL: Print the designs on vinyl and then adhere them to the outside of the jars.
Now it is time to put some candles in and add illumination to the room! Our DIY Christmas lanterns are ready.
My young son was very excited to see the new lanterns. We used LED white light candles, so I wasn’t worried about him playing with the lanterns for as much as he wanted to.
Afterwards, I tried going over the black silhouettes with white acrylics to imitate snow, lying on the roofs… But when we put the candles in and dimmed the light, the white was really not noticeable. So you can try it or leave it.
More Christmas Designs
The design for this project can also be found in our Silhouette Christmas Bundle. The book is a collection of various ideas for Christmas-themed silhouette crafts—ornaments, lanterns, cards, tags and toys. Altogether, there are fifteen silhouette crafts with over sixty pages of printable silhouette designs. Print and make—it’s that easy!
Where did the trend of decorating Christmas trees originate? Why were candy canes invented? Which carol inspired the impromptu Christmas truce during World War I? Enjoy the season and learn together with our Christmas Trivia!
Wow! That look amazing! Love it! Thank you for sharing it with us #pintorials
So beautiful! I would love to make this. Do you think there is a good substitute for the blue spray paint? Thanks!!
Would you like a substitute for a spray paint in general, or just the blue colour?
Spray paint is pretty nice for this: it gives an even and thin layer. But if it is not available, I would use acrylic paints. I tried once, but liked the spray paint version more. With acrylics, I would not use brushes, but a sponge (like a make-up sponge or a dish-washing sponge). The result would be more textured, and the light will come through less, but it should work.
I hope it helps!
I made fairy catchers lanterns, and instead of spraying the outside of the jar, I mixed equal parts of white glue and acrylic paint, dabbed it on the jars with a sponge. I made 2 layers, let dry between each layer. I used white and the effect was very nice, the mix of paint stays very well on the jars.
I did this too and it worked great
What is the name of the spray paint product in RSA and where could one buy it please
Regards
Barbara
Hi Barbara,
I used Rust-oleum Spray Paint (Rust-Oleum 249120 Painter’s Touch Multi Purpose Spray Paint, 12-Ounce, Brilliant Blue
). You can usually find it in stores like Home Depot.
A good color other than blue?
I went for blue because it seemed like a colour of winter. Purple would create an effect of a sunset/sunrise sky. But it would be interesting to see how other colours look!
would it be possible go use stickers for these. I am not an artist and know I would mess it up big time. They are gorgeous!!
Thank you, Ann! Yes, you can use stickers. I did not try for this project, but I think printing the designs on a piece of transparent vinyl would work well.
I would suggest maybe instead of white paint.. try using stickers (like stars) on the jars b4 painting them. then remove. this would leave a clear area of maybe take paint thinner or nail polish remover in a cotton swab and try removing painted areas (for snow effect) so it is clear. This way when lit everything shines nice and the clear areas would be brighter. which works nice for stars or moons.
Wouldn’t the spray paint stop you from seeing the picture to trace??
If the layer is thin, you can see through enough to trace the picture. :) I think it may also help to put an LED candle behind the picture.
I guess I didn’t put a thin enough layer on the jar. What do I do if I can’t see the design? Would cuting it out and tracing it on the out side work?
Hi Cortney,
Sorry, you had problems! You can cut it out and glue onto the outside! That would work for sure. You can also try sticking LED candle inside and check if you can see the design that way.
Beautiful lanterns ! I have some another way to make lanterns you can refer
I hope you made enough $ on ads for this post. I had to stop 1/3 pf the way thru…deluged with ADS! ITS ridiculous
Thanks for wasting my time.
Could you not just put a your template of the own, around the inside of the glass, but on black paper? It would still create the shadow effect. Or would this not work?
How cool are these!!! Just wondering how the paint holds up once the jar gets hot from the candle??? Does it peel etc???
Hi! I love these lanterns! So cosy! Do you mind if we share this idea on our Norwegian creative site “kreativeideer.no”? That means translate the instructions to Norwegian and borrow some of your photos. We will of course credit you with name, URL and blog name!
Hi Ann,
Thank you for asking! You can share my post with translated instructions, but please, if you decide to link to the template I offer, link to my “free template” page with it here.
I’m going to try this with frosting spray paint. I think it might come out nice or at least I hope anyway.
Carmen, did the frosting paint work??
Hi, okay I’m a little confused on the instructions. We put the downloaded template inside of the jar and then trace and fill in the black areas on the outside? Thanks! I think these are just beautiful and my Mom would love them. :)
Hi Quantumnerd, that’s exactly right! :) I hope you will enjoy making them.
Wow, this is a cool project! I’m going to make a mini-sized version for my younger sister tomorrow. It’s going to be her Christmas gift this year. Thank you for this gorgeous tutorial! :D
Beautiful jars! Definitely want to give this a go sometime! Do you usually remove the picture from inside the jar once you’ve traced it or do you just leave it in? :)
Thank you, Katie! I take the pictures out once I am done tracing them.
This will be a fun project. I think I’m going to try flicking some warm wax on it before the spray paint then I can wash it off for the snow affect
Hi Jeffery & Liska,
Your website is beautiful! I just did a post called “10 Fantastic Frugal DIY Christmas Decor Ideas” and I featured your enchanting Christmas lanterns. Love them! Thought you might be interested in seeing it! If you enjoy, feel free to share!
https://simplynatureplusnurture.com/2015/11/17/10-fantastic-frugal-diy-christmas-decor-ideas/
Thank you!
Mary Harp
simplynatureplusnurture.com
Could this be done easily with black vinyl for the pictures?
Yes, it is a good idea, but some may feel more confident drawing, some would prefer to work with scissors. I should add it as an idea. :)
Could you email me the christmas template to me and I can try at home? I have the link, but if you can attach the template to the email that might work.
These are so neat! I can’t wait to get your post to see what else I can make!
Thank you for sharing these printables. I will be doing this, this year for sure.
Instead of paint could coloured tissue work once dry x
That would be a great idea!
Could plastic jars be used to make these?
I think so, but I’ve never tried. Would be happy to know the results if you do!