In December 2023, The Village Hub and Stoke In Bloom teamed up to host a special Christmas tree lights switch on and market at Stoke Youth & Community Centre and in Stoke Village Square (on the edge of Blockhouse Park), and started a new annual tradition.
For the 2024 celebrations, we’re encouraging people to make and bring their own winter lanterns to light up the village for the evening on Fri 28th November 2024. We’ll have a special lantern competition (with lots of winter treats as prizes!) that’s open to all.
If you’d like to make lanterns with other people (from local willow), please join us at our Culture Club “Creating Winter Cheer” event (Sat 23 Nov 2024 – 2-4pm). If you’d rather make your lantern in your own time at home, you can pick up a DIY pack of bits and bobs (creative materials) to get you started from The Village Hub from 13th November onwards.
We highly recommend raiding your recycling bin for materials (you will find loads in there!), or recommend a trip to Plymouth Scrapstore (Union St, between ALDI & LIDL) to pick up lots of creative tips and materials
Inspiration
If you’ve never made a winter lantern before, don’t worry! We’ve got lots of ideas to get your creative juices flowing.
Milk Bottle Elmer
Did you know that the celebrated children’s author and artist David McKee (creator of Elmer the Patchwork Elephant & Mr Benn) studied Plymouth College of Art?
You can make your own Elmer lantern from a plastic milk bottle, PVA glue & tissue paper – see Louisa Broome’s video to find out how!
Juice Carton Houses
Maybe you’d like to make a model of your own house (or an imaginary one?). Here’s some ideas on how to do this – https://www.recyclart.org/milk-package-inspiration/
Looking for more ideas?
Rachel, our Creative Community Builder has been collecting lots of different ideas on this pinterest board. Have a browse and find something you’d like to make!
Raid the Recycling! Plastic Milk Bottles make great lanterns
Have a look at this video for some great ideas.
Try Your Hand at Origami (a bit more advanced!)
If you like paper folding and origami, you could try this lantern idea from Luis Craft. Pre-prepare a sheet of wet-strength tissue paper (available from The Village Hub) by spreading it with watered-down PVA glue, folding in half (so the two halves stick together) and let it dry. This will make your paper more resistant to rain and the winter weather!
Paper or Card Cylinders
Using some pre-prepared wet-strength tissue paper, or other light coloured paper or card, you can roll & staple cylinder shapes and decorate as you wish.
Try working with willow!
If you have access to some willow (or twigs / tree branches), you could try out making your lantern frames with that. You can use masking tape, rubber bands or string to bind pieces together, and then cover in wet-strength tissue paper (pick up from The Village Hub) coasted in watered-down PVA glue. Plymouth Scrapstore often have small bundles of willow for sale if you can’t find any locally.
Here’s some easy to follow instructions – https://www.edenprojectcommunities.com/ideas/make-willow-lanterns
Lights
Lights are a key ingredient in your winter lantern. Before rushing out to the shops to get something new, have a look round the house to see what you can reuse (or borrow). Please don’t use traditional candles / fire to light up your lantern (we need to keep everyone safe). You might already have something like:
- Battery tea lights / LED candles
- Torch / camping lights / head torch
- Bike lights
- Battery fairy lights
- Puck lights / under-counter lights
- Solar-power garden lights (be sure to charge these up in daylight for a few days beforehand!)
If you can’t find any of these, we’ll have some available at the Christmas tree lights switch-on event for you to borrow.