Antiqued Votive Lantern Tutorial

Today I am sharing a project I made for Papercraft Planet's "12 Days of Christmas": today is day 1 (...and a partridge in a pear TREE!...) so anything with trees goes! My parents are in town for Thanksgiving and amazingly I was able to whip up this whole project and tutorial while they were here on Thanksgiving day before the meal while they entertained the kids! I didn't think there'd be time to stamp at all during their visit, who knew?!) This is very similar to my haunted votive but with a few adjustments. I was inspired by a hurricane lantern I bought for my dad's mountain cabin a few years back, the metal was an aged aged brown and black, which I knew I could easily duplicate with a sponge and some ink and would look fabulous with Gina 's new Free with Three "Tree Silhouettes". The picture below is what I made, on our dining room table (I put it on this trivet to boost it up for the pic, and wish I'd gotten some our wrought iron accessories in the pic to show how great they match... oh well!


Start by scoring a piece of CS at 2.5, 5, 7.5, and 10 Inches. Cut off the last three quarter inch to leave a small flap.

Here I am cutting out a window in each section with one of my long dies. I didn't measure, just centered it in each. As you can see, I like to put my C plate on top and B on bottom when I'm cutting so I can see where my die is. When you do this, it's mirror image of the regular stack, so here your cutting edge is facing DOWN.

TIP: My B plates are getting pretty warped from use so I sometimes have a few areas where my die doesn't quite go all the way through. You can run the die and CS back through, but sometimes it just wants to hang on in that one spot, ya know? Fortunately, it has cut part way through, so instead of ripping it out or cutting with scissors, take your hobby blade and insert and pull through the line, it will come right out.

Now grab a sponge and start adding your black ink all over the outside. I used Chocolate Chip CS to match most of the finishes of my iron candle holders etc, but there maybe be another earthy tone or silver or gray that is a better match for your decor/colors. I chose Craft Ink to show up even better since it is REALLY opaque, and so I wouldn't have to press so hard, plus it leaves the slightest texture compared to classic ink.

Now stamp your trees in Memento Tuxedo Black on your vellum paper rectangles, each just slightly bigger than your openings. Be sure to blot onto scratch paper as even this fast drying ink takes a little while to dry on vellum.

Run your Dot'n'Roller on the insides around each opening. I didn't have this stuff when I made my first votive and it is ideal for this project, less mess, and place each stamped piece on top of the adhesive, stamped side facing out.)

I didn't have this adhesive when I made my first votive and it is ideal for this project, less mess, and you can simply rub off the excess around the sideswith your fingers(see (or rather, don't see LOL!) below)

Here is the finished shade, if you click on the pic hopefully you can see that beautiful mottled antiqued finish, you'd have to touch it to believe it's not metal but paper! I love this rustic look with those elegant trees. I will be making several more of this to decorate en masse around the house later this weekend, it will go just perfectly with the pine scent once we set up our Christmas tree!

If you want to take this a step further but skip the paper, the stamps would be gorgeous on real frosted glass to make a more permanent decoration!

Hope you enjoyed this project, and you'll play along making your own tree-themed creation and upload to Papercraft Planet, you could win free stamps! Tomorrow is Day 2, and another challenge!(sing the song to see if you can guess!) :)

OH! Don't forget: 24-hour Specials - Friday November 28th in the Gina K store {midnight to midnight} - be sure to check them out! (I can't wait to see what they are!) :)