How to Make a Martinmas Lantern With Children: A Jar Lantern and a Paper Window Lantern

To make a Martinmas lantern, your child covers a glass jar with tissue paper, or fills the windows of a paper tube with tissue and leaves. Then the light goes inside.

The dark comes before dinner now, and your child has heard there's a lantern walk coming. You'd like them to carry a light they made themselves, and you're not sure where to start.

Martinmas falls on November 11, the feast of St Martin. He was the Roman soldier who cut his cloak in two at the gate of Amiens and gave half to a freezing beggar. At the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, the students make lanterns before the walk, some from painted paper and wire, some from little gourds. Then the families gather at dusk and walk with the lanterns lit. Waldorf Publications says of that light: "while our light seems small and fragile, still, it brings relief in the cold and darkness."

One homeschooling family, writing at Uncommon Grace, made lanterns with their children over 3 or 4 work sessions. On Martinmas they met their homeschooling friends in a park and set out singing. They told Martin's story in a stand of trees, where all was dark except their lanterns.

A lantern your child made is their own small light to carry into the dark on your walk.

Start this week. A young child can cover a jar with torn tissue paper while you brush on the glue. An older child can fill the windows of a paper lantern with tissue and leaves, while you do the cutting and put it together.

Two lanterns, one for young children and one for older children

Our rough guide: the jar lantern suits a child of about kindergarten age, the window lantern a child of about 6 and up. You know your child's hands best.

The jar asks only for tearing and pressing, so you brush on the glue and twist on the wire. With the window lantern, your child glues tissue and leaves into the windows while you cut the paper, put the lantern together and tie on the handle.

The light: a battery tea light, every time

Both lanterns use the same light. In a guest post on the Bella Luna Toys blog, Franzi Shelton says only flameless candles should go in a lantern, to avoid fires. Waldorf Publications finds battery tea lights work well with younger children.

Buy one for each lantern, plus one spare for the walk.

How to make a jar lantern (for young children)

Your child does the tearing and pressing. You do the glue and the wire.

You'll need:

• 1 clean glass jar, label soaked off
• Tissue paper in 2 or 3 colors
• White glue and water
• A small bowl and a soft paintbrush
• Heavy-duty plant wire, for the handle
• 1 battery tea light and some sticky putty

Step 1. Tear the tissue paper into pieces about the size of your child's palm. This is your child's job.

Step 2. Mix 1 part white glue with 2 parts water in the bowl.

Step 3. Brush the glue onto one side of the jar yourself, and let your child press tissue pieces onto it, each one overlapping the edge of the last. Brush over each piece once more to smooth out the wrinkles. Turn the jar and do the next side, until the glass is covered.

Step 4. Stand the jar on its base and leave it until the glue is dry.

Step 5. Wrap the wire once around the neck of the jar and twist it tight. Bring the loose end up in an arch, and twist it onto the wire on the opposite side. Hold the lantern up by the handle and adjust the wire until the jar hangs level. Use heavy wire, because a handle that breaks on the walk drops the jar.

Step 6. Set the tea light in the middle of the jar's base on a pea of sticky putty. The putty holds it still on the walk, and it lifts out when you need to switch the light on or change the battery.

Your jar lantern is done when the tissue is dry and smooth. It hangs level from its handle, with the light sitting firm inside.

If your child brings in autumn leaves, they can press them on between the tissue pieces in Step 3, and you brush glue over them too.

How to make a paper window lantern (for older children)

This lantern is adapted from the autumn lantern in The Children's Year, a family craft book by Stephanie Cooper, Christine Fynes-Clinton and Marije Rowling, published by Hawthorn Press. In mainland Europe, children make lanterns like this for Martinmas and sing as they carry them out in the dark.

The book gives the paper sizes, the 3 cm fold at the top, the 1 cm cuts along the bottom, the cheese-box lid and the string handle. The window sizes and margins below are our own advice. The 2 cm spacing of the bottom cuts comes from Myriad's painted lanterns. We use a battery tea light where the book has a night-light in a glass jar.

The light shines through the tracing paper in the windows, so this lantern needs no oil. Every piece of glue goes onto plain paper or card.

You'll need:

• 1 sheet of thick colored paper, 38 by 24 cm (15 by 9 1/2 inches)
• 1 piece of tracing paper or greaseproof paper, 30 by 16 cm (12 by 6 1/4 inches)
• Scraps of colored tissue paper, or pressed leaves
• 1 round cheese-box lid, 11 cm (4 1/2 inches) across
• Pritt or Uhu glue
• A pencil, a ruler, scissors and a single hole punch
• String, for the handle
• 1 battery tea light and some sticky putty

Step 1: fold the top (first sitting). Lay the paper with a long edge toward you. Fold 3 cm (1 1/4 inches) over to the back along the top long edge, and crease it. This double band is the top of the lantern, and the handle goes through it.

Step 2: draw the windows. Turn the paper over, so the folded band faces you. This side will be the inside. With the band folded, the paper now stands 21 cm (8 1/4 inches) tall. Lay the tracing paper with its top edge along the lower edge of the band, and 4 cm (1 1/2 inches) of colored paper showing at each short end. That leaves 2 cm (3/4 inch) of colored paper below it. Draw round it. Inside that outline, draw 2 windows side by side, each 11 cm wide and 12 cm tall (4 1/4 by 4 3/4 inches). Leave 2 cm (3/4 inch) between the outline and the windows on every side, and 4 cm (1 1/2 inches) between the 2 windows. You can round the tops into arches.

Step 3: cut the windows. Cut both windows out yourself.

Step 4: back the windows. Run glue around each window, on the colored paper inside your outline. Press the tracing paper onto the outline, so it overlaps every window edge by 2 cm.

Step 5: decorate the windows. Turn the paper back over. Your child glues torn tissue or pressed leaves onto the tracing paper in each window, overlapping the tissue for richer color. Trim any tissue that runs past a window's edge. Leave it until the glue is dry.

Step 6: snip the bottom (second sitting). Make small cuts 1 cm (1/2 inch) deep all along the bottom edge, about 2 cm (3/4 inch) apart. These are the tabs that hold the base. Below the tracing paper there's 2 cm of colored paper, so the cuts stay clear of it.

Step 7: glue the seam. Curve the paper into a tube, windows out, and stand it inside the rim of the cheese-box lid to find where the short ends overlap. The overlap lands on the plain 4 cm strips at the ends. Mark it, lift the tube out, and glue the two short ends together there. Press the seam until the glue grips.

Step 8: glue the base. Fold the bottom tabs inward. Run glue over the floor of the lid and around the inside of its rim. Press the lantern down into the lid, so the tabs stick to the floor and the sides stick to the rim.

Step 9: add the handle. Punch 2 holes opposite each other through both layers of the folded band, about 1.5 cm (5/8 inch) below the top edge. Thread the string through both holes and knot each end.

Step 10: add the light. Set the tea light in the middle of the lid on a pea of sticky putty. It stays put on the walk and lifts out when you need to switch it on or change the battery.

Your window lantern is done when the seam and base hold firm. The string is knotted at both holes, and the light sits firm in the middle of the lid.

What to expect

A jar lantern a young child made may be lumpy, with tissue bunched in places. It shines just the same.

In the window lantern, the light shines out through the 2 windows. Switch it on in a dark room with your child before Martinmas, and look at the leaves and tissue together.

If the light goes out on the walk, swap in the spare.

Carrying it on Martinmas

Your lantern is ready a few days before November 11. What's left is the evening itself: the walk at dusk with a song, and the story of Martin and his cloak.

Our Martinmas festival guide sets out that evening.