Easy Halloween Pumpkin Lantern

Yesssss More Halloween please.

In this instructable I will show you how to make an easy pumpkin lantern that's also relatively cheap. It takes under 10 mins to make one and can be made by all ages : )

There is also a youtube video linked below (cant embed it for some reason)

Lets get started

Tools

Scissors
A hole punch

Materials

3x A4 sheets of orange acetate (or if you are in a pinch layer, like i was here, a yellow sheet over a red one, primary colours in action)
Some black and green craft foam (cardboard would also do)

Battery operated lights

Double sided tape or glue dots

and a wooden skewer

Take your A4 sheets and cut them in half.

Then cut those halves in half so you have 12 strips in total.

Then using your hole punch punch a hole at both ends of all 12 strips

Takes some of your green foam and cut out 3 strips approx. 1cm x 6cm (doesn't need to be exact)
Stick a bit of double sided tape at each end.

Now this part is optional but you can cut out a leaf "top" and poke a hole into it with the skewer (you will see why you do this now in the next few steps)

Take your skewer and slip it through the holes of one of your acetate strips, you are just measuring out where to put your 2 of your green foam strips at this point.

You want the acetate to form a nice curve, so once you have good idea of were to put the bottom most strip (Mines was around 12cm from the spikey end) attach one end of the foam to the stick and wrap it round using the other bit of double sided tape to hold it in place so it forms a "stopper" preventing your acetate from falling off.

unhook the uppermost part of the acetate if you haven't already done so and then place the rest of the accretes onto the skewer through the lower hole only.

Now attach another strip of foam roughly 2cm from the top of the skewer

At this pint you may want to attach your lights to the skewer. Doing it this way will prevent the lights from "sitting" at the bottom of your lantern but its not necessary but remember to leave the battery pack out side of the pumpkin for ease of turning on and off (the wire will slip through the strips)

Now we are at the "tricky" bit
Take a hold of the first strip you put on the skewer (it will be the lowest) and bring the other end over to the top.
Repeat this with the second lowest strip bring it round a bit to form another pumpkin "panel" and continue up the way until you have one strip left.

If you hadn't attached the lights in the last step you can stuff them in now (remember to leave the battery pack out)

Bend over the last strip, at this point you can put the leaf top in place if you made one it helps hold the strips in place* while you attach the last foam strip

*see told you making the hole in it earlier on would pay off

Using your black foam cut out some features.

Handy hint: if you want them to be symmetrical you can fold the foam in half and cut it out that way.

attach some double sided tape to the features and stick them to your pumpkin

and you are done!

you could end up with a whole patch of these if you had a few people making them, they are easy to carry or can be "planted" into a pot. you could also use solar powered lights and leave them outside, the foam and plastic would be fairly weather resistant but you may need to keep an eye on the tape.

As always I hope you enjoyed this instructable and as always, thoughts, comments and even photos of your own pumpkin lanterns are always welcome in the comments section below.