DIY Christmas Lantern Tutorial – How to Decorate a Christmas Lantern

No one wants to spend tons of money on decorations each year! This tutorial will show you How to Decorate a Christmas Lantern at home!

I love decorating for the holidays! If you took a look at my apartment right now you would see Christmas decorations all over the place. I’ve got my Christmas tree in the corner, and a barn star with white Christmas lights hanging to the left of that. There is a wreath and bow down the wall, a colonial style Christmas lamp on a 100 year old table as well as this Christmas lantern hanging by the door along with some other decorations.

There are about 5 wreaths hanging in the apartment haha.

I found a Christmas lantern like this at a local shop a few months ago for $90.

I stood in the store for a good 30 minutes wondering if I should just bite the bullet and buy it.

However, I decided to try my hand at making my own instead! 

• 1  lantern  (I found this one at Marshalls for like $10)
• 3-4 Red Berry wreath decoration sprigs 
• Fake Pine Cones and Berries
• 1 LED flickering flameless candle (I found a 3 pack at Marshalls for $5)
• String Lights, Firefly Waterproof Battery Operated Decoration Lights
• Christmas Ribbon to make a bow
• Metal Holly Ornament (or any large ornament)
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks

Let’s start with the decorations that are going to go inside of the Christmas lantern.

So what I did first was bend the red berry sprigs around the candle.

Once I did that I took the String Lights and wove them in and around the red berries.

These lights that I have run by battery and have a timer. So I set the lights up so that the battery pack would be hidden by the candle and the red berry sprigs. The candle also runs by battery and it also has a timer! Thankfully both the candle and the lights have a 4 hour timer on them so they turn off and turn on at the same time without me having to touch it! I love it!

These little pine cone and berry sprigs are perfect to help hide the battery pack as well.

Once I get everything set up, I just slide the decoration down into the lantern.

I love how perfect it looks down in there.

Next, you’ll just want to make a Christmas bow to go on top!

There are a ton of YouTube tutorials out there for bows. I’m not great at making them but once you make one, just glue a giant ornament into the center and no one will ever know that you couldn’t get it perfect. haha.

Now just glue that giant Christmas bow onto the handle of your lantern and you’re done.

That was easy, wasn’t it.

I’ve seen lanterns like this in stores selling anywhere from $60-$180! Holy Moly!

There isn’t any reason to spend that much money on a Christmas decoration when you can make something just as beautiful in a matter of minutes.

DIY Christmas Lantern Tutorial – How to Decorate a Christmas Lantern