How to make a Six Petals Flower Chinese New Year Lantern using Red Packets

This is six petals flower lantern made with 18 red packets or Ang Pows.

I've made the below video, step by step instructions to create this Ang Pow lantern to decorate our home or office for the Chinese New Year.


Materials required:
- 18 red packets
- Stapler
- a tassel
- red string

The length of the string is up to your preference how you would like to hang your lantern. You can use gold string too.

How to make a Triangular Ang Bao Lantern

I just made this triangular Ang Bao Lantern out of the blue while I was playing with my red packets.

I used three large red packets to form a triangular upper layer, and another three large red packets to make the bottom layer.

Then I used three smaller red packets to make a "pendulum" in its centre. You can click to my previous post on my Diamond Ang Pow Lantern as a reference to learn to make this "pendulum"

After the lantern was completed, I was trying to give it an appropriate name.

I did a research on its shape, and I learned there was a mathematical term on the geometry of the upper and bottom layer, called "tetrahedron".

So if you are doing this Ang Bao Lantern with your children, you might also want to introduce to them this geometrical term  "tetrahedron", when you can have fun and learn a bit of mathematics.

Here is a video that I've created to show you how I make this triangular ang bao lantern, so you can also have something special for Chinese New Year.

How to make an Lucky Star with ten red packets 福星高照

In my older post "Chinese New Year Lantern - Lucky Star",
I've shared written instructions on how to make this Ang Bao Lucky Star with only ten red packets.

I've just created a video to show you how I made this Ang Bao Lucky Star.

Now you can have a better picture of the process it is being made, so you can do this simple-to-make Chinese New Year handicraft with your kids to decorate your house for this coming lunar new year!

Wishing everyone good health and prosperity, Happy Lunar New Year!

STRAWBERRY LANTERN

In my previous post, I have shown you a picture of different colour packets. Now I felt so blessed to have different coloured packets in Singapore.

Well, I was trying to make a heart-shaped CNY lantern but somehow, I was quite disheartened when it end up out of shaped. Somehow, I see it look like a strawberry fruit. So I made use of the green packets to make leaves. And now I have got a Strawberry Lantern!

The moral I learnt from the process is: "Don't be disheartened. Be creative and positive, you will get a surprise!"

I wish you would also enjoy the lantern making process with my blog.

Do share with me if you have other good ideas to make use of the different colour packets to make Chinese New Year decorations.

Mix & Match - Spaceship & Diamond

We can add varieties in the making of Ang Pow Lanterns for Chinese New Year.

I combined my Spaceship Ang Pow Lantern & Diamond Ang Pow Lantern to make a Chinese New Year Lantern as shown in the picture on the left.

You may click on the following links to find out how to make the

Spaceship Ang Pow Lantern

Diamond Ang Pow Lantern

Enjoy and have fun!

How to Make a Diamond Ang Pow Lantern

This Diamond Chinese New Year Ang Pow Lantern is very simple to make and it uses 4 Red Packets

Materials you need:
1) 4 red packets
2) Super Glue
3) A tassel
4) Estimated 30 cm red string ( you can decide the length you want)
5) beads (optional, I didn't use it in my video here)

Here is the video that I have created to show you how it is made. Enjoy and have fun!

How to make a Lamp-shaped Chinese New Year Lantern with 24 Red Packets

Chinese New Year (CNY) 2013 is round the corner. It's time for spring clean and make new decorations for our home.

My hubby does this "Lamp-shaped" Chinese New Year lantern. He made a pair and put them up at our door.

The lantern does give an oriental look to home decorations.

Now, you would want to get ready the following materials to make a lamp-shaped lantern:

- 24 red packets (also known as "Ang Bao", "Hong Bao" or red envelopes)

- Stapler

- A piece of red string estimated 30cm ( to attach the lantern for hanging

- A red tassel with a pearl bead.

Here's "How to make a Lamp-Shaped Chinese New Year Lanterns with 24 Ang Bao"

How to Make an Ang Pow Fan

This Ang Pow Fan is made using only 10 red envelopes. It is also easy to make as a decoration or gift to friends and relatives during Chinese New Year. The materials required are as follow:

1) 10 Red packets (Ang Pow)
2) Red string about 30 cm
3) one tassel
4) UHU glue or double sided tape
5) A pair of scissors (optional, in case you need to cut a ball of red string)

Here's is a step by step tutorial I've made and uploaded to share with you

How to make an Ang Pow Spaceship

As I play around with the Ang Pow packets, I made this Chinese New Year Lantern. It looks like a spaceship to me, and I'm still trying to give it a nice name.

I used only 12 red packets. It is another simple craft that children can learn.
As for busy adults, it is easy to learn and fast to make.
It gives sense of satisfactions and enjoyment when you can make one as a gift to your relatives, friends or colleagues.

Here is the video I've made and uploaded

How to make a Flower Ball using only 12 red packets

My friend brought some square red packets. At first, we could not decide what to do, later we discovered we could make a flower ball with only 12 square red packets!

I've created this video to show you how to do it, it's very simple.



If you have kids, you can teach them to make one for their art lesson or make one to decorate your house for the coming Chinese New Year on 3 Feb 2011.

Here are the materials required:

1. 12 square red packets
2. A piece of red string about 30cm
3. Stapler with yellow or red staples filled
4. 1 Tassel
5. Sticky tape

Have Fun!

十全宫灯 "Shi Quan" Palace lantern

This YouTube video shows how to make a palace lantern with red envelopes (Ang Bao)

I estimated it takes about 30 red envelopes: 16 red envelopes to form the bottom section; 8 envelopes to form the top sections; reminding for decorations.

The folding method for each red envelope as shown in the video is very similar to the way I make my "Golden Flower Corolla".

Chinese New Year lantern - Golden Flower Corolla

This Chinese New Year lantern is made up of 20 red packets / Ang Baos.

I have specially chosen the red packets designed with yellow print. When I combined each red envelope with gold sticky tape and curved folded it, one by one it forms a golden petal.

As I attached the 20 "gold petals" together, it whirls together to form a Golden Flower Corolla.

Gold colour symbolises Royalty and Wealth. When you put up this Golden Flower Corolla Chinese New Year Lantern, your home is immediately filled with elegance & magnanimous.

Here is the link to how it is made, click "A simple Ang Bao Flower Corolla Lantern"

Chinese New Year Lantern - The Lucky "8" 幸运发财红包灯笼

The number "8" is considered as a lucky symbol among the Chinese. "8" is pronounced as "ba" in Mandarin, and it sounds similar to “发”pronounced as "fa", meaning "prosperous".

The symbol "8" is rounded, it also signifies “圆圆满满”. It represents continuation, totality and complete success.

Business owners associate "8" to their business continuation to prosperity, wealth and success.

You might have heard some Chinese in Singapore they would cheer "Huat" (meaning “发”in Hokkien ) when they were toasting to celebrate progress for their business.

This is also an easy to make CNY lantern. It's made using only 14 red money envelope. For this lantern, I have chosen to use red envelope with the traditional chinese word “发". It's appropriate and meaningful.

Chinese New Year Lantern - Valentine Heart. 心形红包灯笼

Lunar New Year this year 2010 falls on 14 February. It's also Valentine's Day.

This heart-shaped lantern adds Valentine's Day ambience while we are celebrating Chinese New Year.

For this heart-shaped Chinese New Year Lantern, I used 21 pieces of red packets, although the steps in my manual I counted was only 20 pieces.

1. Five pieces of red packet, folded into diamond shape. Staple them to form a 5 petals blossom. Make two sets.
2. The side is made with three pieces of diamond shaped folded red packet. There are 2 sides, you will need six pieces.
3. At the top was four pieces of diamond shaped folded red packets.
4. I used an extra one red packet to stick on the top so that I could hold it with a string for hanging.

It's quite challenging to me to make this heart-shaped lantern. I tried thrice, and only this looks like a heart. The other 2 turned out to look like a red pepper and a strawberry.

You could stick addition flower decoration to the lantern to make it exotic. For me, a simple valentine will do. :)

Chinese New Year Lantern - Lucky Star 吉星高照

My neighbour praised my Flower Ball Chinese New Year Lantern was very beautiful.
She told me that her kid enjoyed doing handicraft but that flower ball would be too difficult for her 5 years old child.

This is a very simple to make Chinese New Year Lantern. It has the shape of a star. We give it an auspicious name for Chinese New Year called "The Lucky Star".

If the school teacher asks your kid to make a handicraft for this coming Chinese New Year, you can teach your children to do this.

1. You need just 10 Ang Pows (red money envelopes)
2. Fold each red envelope into a diamond shape.
3. Staple 5 diamond shaped red envelopes to form the star, make 2 sets.
4. Combine the 2 sets and you would have a Lucky Star with the front and the back.
5. Add beads and string to make it more interesting and ostentatious (showy/catchy/flashy)

I made a pair for my neighbour's boy. He was so happy when he received them.

A Chinese New Year Gift for my Teacher

Chinese New Year is just 2 weeks ahead. Since I've learned to make Flower Ball Chinese New Year lantern this year, I'm going to give this as a Chinese New Year Gift to my teacher.

Ms Gladys Tan is our Tai Chi Class instructor. I always respect and admire her very much.
She is positive and passionate. She is continuously learning and upgrading herself on Tai Chi, and very generously she would share with us her knowledge about Tai Chi

For this lantern, I've added flowers to make it more interesting. Now it doesn't look like a mallet, does it?

I think she would like it. ^v^

Another Ball shaped Chinese New Year Lantern 红包绣球

This is another flower ball I've made with 30 red money envelopes (or Ang Pow we called it)

I've run out of red envelopes with patterns printed on both sides. This set of red money envelopes has no patterns printed at the back of each.

If I just cross-fold and staple the edges following the flower ball I did earlier, I think it'd look simple, a red ball with yellow round patches.

For this one, I did some triangular fold at the edges. My surprise too, it turns out to look like I have 5 petals flower ribbon sticking on a ball! Well, it looks 3-dimensional to me.

My hubby told me this flower ball looks more like a kind chinese mallet weapon called 槌。Haha, very funny.

I've done a pair. I'm hanging them at the door. Good, a pair of mallets, ward off all the evil bad things away.

Anyway, my neighbour saw them and told me they look beautiful. Yay! Yay! So happy!

Chinese New Year Lantern - Flower Ball Ornaments 红包彩球

This Chinese New Year lantern is made up of 30 pieces of red packets. It looks like a flower ball ornament.

I just learned this from an instruction book.

A special thing about this lantern is that the 30 red packets, each red money envelope has patterns printed on both sides.

I've specially selected that set of red packets to make this flower ball ornaments so that when I fold in the edges, I can have the patterns from the back side of the red envelope to be shown at the front. And I have a more colourful flower ball 彩球, than a red ball.

Not all red packets have patterns printed on both sides of each red envelope. If you can't get a set with patterns printed on both sides, a suggestion to you is to paste gold tape or any other coloured tapes at the sides of each red money envelope. To stick that, it requires time and effort.

Therefore, you may like to chose and buy the red packets suitable for the Chinese New Year Lanterns that you want to make.

I love browsing Ang Pow red packets with different prints and patterns. Some printed with the picture of the God of Wealth 财神，the chinese character 福 meaning good fortune, blessing and happiness, and "Gong Hey Fatt Choy" 恭喜发财 meaning wishing you prosperity. All the auspicious, happy and encouraging words printed on these red packets can make you so happy!

Rotating Ang Pow Lantern 红包走马灯

This is a Chinese New Year Lantern made using 36 red packets (Ang Pow). It is called "走马灯" (zou ma deng) or "rotating lantern". It rotates when the wind blows.

For this one, I made it using red packets with picture of the God of Wealth 财神爷. I guess it really brought some luck to Mum as she won SGD60 on lottery on the day she put it up.