I recently taught a demo for San Diego Book Arts that showed participants how to pleat, cut and twist paper to alter it. The video of the demo is here. I have been playing with the concept ever since and trying out different variations. I made a lantern using this technique in Helen Hiebert’s online class Paper + Light in the summer and it seemed like a good project for the winter holidays.

Using red vellum to make it festive, I created this video so that you can follow along and make the project as well. Below are some photographs of the different stages as well as my very rough diagram of the folds involved. I hope you will make this project with help from the video. Try changing the size of the paper and see how it changes the dimensions of the finished lantern (8.5 x 11 inch size works well if you don’t have any 12 inch paper lying around).