Wish Lantern DIY

​Wish Lantern DIY

Wish Lanterns are beautiful creations with many purposes. You can call them whatever you like and customize them however you wish. In our craft, we decided to call ours "Wish Lanterns" because they have a rather starry look and the purpose was more-or-less to help my little one with her fears of the dark. 

Materials we used: 

- Mason Jar

- Sea Salt

- Glitter (optional)

- Pipe Cleaners (optional)

- Mod Podge

- Cut Out Shapes or Stickers

- Ribbon

- Battery Powered Tea Light

- Paint Brush

- Hot Glue/Tape/Super Glue

I cleaned up the mason jars then we "painted" them with Mod Podge to give a "hazy" type of look. We let this sit and dry for about 15 minutes while we poured the sea salt on a pan. It looks much better when it is granulated. Since we had to wait for the jars to dry, I used this opportunity to make up a story about wishes and how to achieve them. To a four-year-old, she was quite impressed.

After the story, we re-"painted" another layer of the Mod Podge on the jars then rolled them in the granulated salt to give them a "Dust" type of look.

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Once covered in the salt, it takes a bit for it to dry once more so we took some cut out shapes and simple shape stickers (we used hearts and stars for ours) and stuck them randomly on the insides of the jar. 

For an additional cool effect, we twisted pipe-cleaners in random directions and shapes and stuck them into the jar as well! This is the most creative part as it doesn't need to have a rhyme nor reason, the point is to focus on shadow play.

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 About this time you should find the glue mostly dried. We DABBED more Mod Podge in random lines and patterns along the outside of our jars then lightly sprinkled them with glitter. This gives something more for the light to reflect off of in a dark room! 

Lastly, we placed a little battery powered tea light inside of the jar and Voilà! I wrapped and tied a ribbon of her favorite color along the top of the jar's ridges and created a little rhyme of "Protection from the monsters" for my daughter (which seemed to appease her quite a bit) then we hot glued the ribbon on top so it could hang! 

*You could also just set it on a shelf/dresser/table instead of hanging it if you wish!