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A Lantern for Wishes (2025)

Art & Craft Workshop for Children, organised with Burak Türköz for Kolibrí Festivaali 2025

A little hand holding a lantern A parent holding a finished lantern, photographed by Burak Türköz

Why are we making lanterns?

A Lantern for Wishes is an art and craft workshop at Sello Library, Espoo, organised by Burak Türköz and I (Lù Chén) for Kolibrí Festivaali 2025.

The theme of Kolibrí 2025, its 10th anniversary, is “Wishes.” Talking about “wish,” we thought about the Chinese paper lantern. We set them to the water and sky for wishes, often with writings or drawings on the paper. This mesmerising cultural object also flies across oceans - using lanterns for prayers and wishes has been a long-established practice across cultures. We can find the practices of making paper lanterns in Japan, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, and more.

Hence, we invite the children and their families to make paper lantern together, and then decorate them with “amulets” that represent their past or future wishes.

Our workshop information on Kolibrí website is linked here: https://www.kolibrifestivaali.org/event/a-lantern-for-wishes/

It was a workshop with around 300 dinosaurs - a big thank you to all the material donations and support!

Materials on the workshop table Materials on the workshop table, photographed by Burak Türköz

For this workshop, we want to demonstrate that making does not necessarily require expensive materials - sometimes, you can utilise the things that are just lying around in your home! For example, we used old magazines, flyers, and posters to cut out all the colourful paper circles. Other than that, we started asking through social circles if anyone has unneeded craft materials or small amulets for giveaway. And here, you can see all the amazing materials we had for the workshop - especially the hundreds of dinosaurs!

Dinosaurs and other decoration items Dinosaurs and other decoration items, photographed by Burak Türköz

Thanks to Nat, Mónica, Anh, Betsy - for warmly sharing the materials with us. Without their help, this workshop would not have been as fun as it was.

Thanks to I-Wen and Maija, our festival volunteers, for their hard work in assisting the workshop.

And, many thanks to Sello Library Paja (the makerspace) and Kulttuurikeskus Ninho ry.

Make It Yourself!

Below is an illustrated tutorial created by Burak Türköz and me. We made this tutorial based on Uzma Parveen’s lantern making tutorial on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-Oq4Hhx37A.

Orginally designed for the multi-lingual workshop, however, this graphic tutorial can also be used as a DIY guide for one to make lanterns on their own! The tutorial consists five images in total, the first one presents an overview of the necessary materials.

Making paper lantern step 0 - an overview

Making paper lantern step 1 - the body

Making paper lantern step 2 - the top and the bottom

Making paper lantern step 3 - assemble the parts

Making paper lantern step 4 - decorate it with your wishes

If you are interested in using laser cut machine to cut the circles, you may find relevant facilities in public libraries:

I made a pattern for cutting using Cuttle.xyz (with Education account), a web-based design tool for laser cutting: https://cuttle.xyz/@lu_u/Paper-Lantern-GxHLO7L5ABhr. SVG cutting template can be downloaded here - the “hairline” looks very thin on screen, but there is actually the pattern.

However, you can use any vector editors to design for laser cutting, for example, Inkscape is a free and open-source software, pretty handy for both artistic and technical illustrations. If you are a newbie for laser cutting and computer-aided design (like me at the beginning of 2024), you can refer to my learning diary below (linked in the “Some Other Resources” section).

Nevertheless, it is important to remind ourselves again that digital fabrication is NOT the only way to MAKE things. Cutting (with scissors), tearing, sewing, glueing - we can always exercise our crafts <3

A drawing of family A child proudly showcasing the lantern and a drawing of family, photographed by Burak Türköz

Some Other Resources

📮 lu.does.stuff@outlook.com, 🤝 linkedin, 🔧 github->l-lu-u
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