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Table Tents/Luminaries

12381 Views 26 Replies 12 Participants Last post by  lmz319
I whipped up some of these super fun luminaries! I used color changing LED candles and I LOVE them all!

Light Font Art Jack-o'-lantern Fictional character
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Thanks! I was surprised to find that the LED did such a great job coloring them despite the color of vellum used...they have either pink, orange or white vellum but you'd never know it in the dark.
These are exactly like what i was looking for this year. Great job. For those craft challenged people, for which i am famous, how did you make them, if you don't mind sharing.
I don't mind at all!

You need:

Cardstock
Vellum
Adhesive
X-acto knife
Scoring tool (optional)
Pencil

Cut your 8.5"x11" paper in half, giving you a 4.25" x 11" piece. Fold that in half so it's 4.25" x 5.5". Trace and cut out your design on one side.

Cut a panel of vellum to cover the cutout portion of the design. Adhere to the cardstock covering the cutout.

Cut a rectangle (can be of scrap cardstock or textweight paper) 4.25" x 4". Score on the following lines - 0.50", 2", 2.50". Fold in half. Put adhesive on the edge and line up with the inside bottom edge of your paper tent. Press down. Do the same with the other edge. Push down on the 2" fold and now you have a little "floor" on the inside of your tent which will hold a LED candle and it keeps the overall structure sturdy so it will stand up. When you want to store it simply fold on the 2" mark and it folds flat!

Here's a photo of the inside floor, maybe that will help you visualize the folds and stuff better:

Lighting Candle Flame Flameless candle Darkness


Vellum is pretty expensive and I found that I could use any color vellum and still get nice changing colors with the LED candle. It's kind of nice to have colored vellum in the daylight when the candle is off, but really you can use any color.
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Thank you!

I used mostly colored vellum, pink and orange because that's what I have. One lantern has white but as you can see from the photos you can't tell when you use a color changing LED candle. So, you can pretty much use any color vellum you like and still get multi-colors in the dark!
Thank you! So glad you all like them! I kinda love them myself. =) The possibilities are endless!
I was wondering where you got the templates for the cut outs. For anyone wanting to make these, Amazon has 12 of the color change LED tea lights for 8 dollars and free super saver shipping. Best price by far i found, but i will let ya'll know how well they work.
I found some cutouts online, some I had already in my files.

I got my LED lights from Amazon, that same listing! It was definitely the best price I've found yet.
Where do you buy vellum? Never seen or heard of it before.
Thanks for sharing. Love the idea and what you made.
Thank you! And as Jules17 said, paperandmore.com has the best prices I've found so far for vellum. You can buy it by the sheet there, too, as a sample. Or, local craft stores have some, usually between $0.59-$0.99 a sheet in my area, so it's cheaper to buy in bulk if you only want a lot of one color.
You know, 100 years ago, these are what they referred to with "witch lantern," rather than the goopy jars Pumpkinrot has inspired. They were especially popular in the 1920's, which is when most of my vintage ones were produced, apparently with most originating from Germany.

If vellum is too expensive and you've got a pattern that can be cut from cardstock easily, consider using orange gift wrap tissue paper which is fairly common in the dollar stores this time of year. Red works too. At least 1 in 4 of my vintage ones use red instead of orange. Green, white and purple make up a minority that together add up to maybe 10% of my vintage witch lanterns.
Great idea with the tissue paper, hadn't even thought of that!
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