Erik Brinkman wanted paper lanterns in a particular size, could not buy them anywhere, and could not find a tutorial either, so he worked it out and filmed it. This walkthrough follows his build from Brinkman Crafts. The lantern is a rattan cane frame wrapped in Japanese tissue paper, shaped over a bin, and it slips straight over a bare pendant bulb.
Nothing is folded or cut to a template here. You bend thin cane around something round, tape it, glue paper to it, wait, then pull the mould out. The finished shade is a clean drum with the cane rings showing faintly through the paper once the light is on.
What you need, and what you can swap
The frame is rattan cane, sold as reed or basket cane in craft shops. Around 2 mm is the right gauge. Thinner cane will not hold the drum shape once the mould is gone, and thicker cane fights you on the curve.
The paper is the part everyone asks about. Erik uses Japanese tissue, and it is worth the money for the way it glows, but he says outright that most kinds of paper could work. Thin gift wrap, kite paper and lightweight sketching tissue all take glue and pass light. Cardstock will not wrap a drum this tight. Plain printer paper goes flat and grey the moment it is lit from behind, which is the one look you are trying to avoid.
For the mould, use anything round and rigid in the size you want. A bin, a bucket, a tall tin, a stock pot, a paint kettle. It only has to survive being taped and having wet paper pressed against it.
Glue is ordinary PVA wood glue thinned with water until it brushes on like milk. Straight from the bottle it is too thick and it puckers tissue.
Drying time is the whole trick
Wet tissue tears if you look at it wrong. Demoulding is the rough part of this build, because you break the grip of the masking tape by pushing the cane a couple of millimetres at a time, and the paper takes some of that force. Dry paper survives it. Damp paper does not.
Give it hours, not minutes. Overnight is safer. If you are making more than one, that wait is the moment to start the next frame rather than stand around watching the first.
Wrinkles are fine, by the way. Erik crushes the finished shade a little on purpose right at the end, and the distressed surface hides every sin in the gluing.
Size, shape and making a matched set
The shape comes entirely from the mould, so you get a different lantern by picking a different object. A paint tin gives a small bedside shade. A laundry bin gives something big enough to read under. A tapered bucket gives you a cone instead of a drum. If you want to know how to make paper lanterns that read as a set, use one mould for all of them and vary only the spacing of the cane rings.
Three or five hung at different drops looks better than a straight row at one height. Erik's own ceiling has the large shades over the walkway and smaller ones further back, which is why the room reads as lanterns rather than as lampshades.
Hanging a diy paper lantern over a bulb
The shade carries no hardware of its own, so the top is a paper ceiling with a hole in it, reinforced underneath with a second patch of paper. That hole grips the fitting and holds the weight. Exactly how it attaches depends on your light. Erik's pendants have a decorative bulb cover that the paper collar sits over.
Use an LED bulb. A hot filament or halogen bulb inside a paper shade is a fire risk, not a lantern. Keep an inch or two of air between the glass and the paper, and never fit one of these into a recessed downlight.
To clean it, dust with a dry brush. Do not wipe it. The diluted glue is water soluble, and a damp cloth will lift the paper straight off the cane.
