I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving! Personally, I caught a cold, so I spent a chunk of the weekend curled up on the couch with Basel watching movies. And since I didn’t have too much time to be creative, I thought this was the perfect time to post about a light that I made a few months ago but never had a chance to share. Do you guys remember my Paper Starburst Pendant Light? Well this light is made from the same white vellum, but instead of spikes I used a paper punch to cut out flower shapes!
I’ve also realized recently that I have a tendency to be a bit long winded, and while that’s not always a bad thing, it might make my tutorials a bit harder to follow. So, I’m going to do my best to start summarizing projects in a few simple easy steps, and then separately elaborate on any steps that need additional explanations. Hopefully these tutorials will be easier to follow but if anyone feels I’m leaving out too much information please let me know! I’ll try to do these shorter and clearer tutorials from now on, and maybe even go back and simplify some earlier posts, if people think these are much easier to follow.
Materials: Paper lantern, vellum (or other paper), paper punch, glue, light bulb cord
Step 1: Cut out your flower shapes using your paper punch. Cut as many as you think you might need, you can always cut out more later.
Step 2: Open your paper lantern, and start gluing your flower pieces on as haphazardly as you like. Make sure you are overlapping your flowers and adding new pieces on top, layers are key to the finished look!
Step 3: Keep gluing shapes on until you are happy with the look, you may need to cut out more as you go along, its all personal preference.
Step 4: Plug your light in, hang the shade up and enjoy!
I loved using the white vellum because it has this slightly translucent quality, which was really pretty both when the light was off and when it was on. You loose a bit of the flower shape once its lit, but I actually think I like it better that way. 
I think the beauty of this project is the final results could look really different depending on what sort of paper you used, and how thickly you layer the pieces on top of each other, and I love that! Any project where you can add your own unique spin is a great project in my mind.
Personally I’ve also been wondering how this concept would look if I used flower shapes cut from old books, instead of the white vellum. I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet but I promise I’ll post photos as soon as I do! 
I’ve also wondered if this would look cool on a lantern of a different color, so maybe when the light was off it looked white but when you turned it on it suddenly glowed pink or orange! I haven’t had a chance to try that idea out either but maybe I’ll buy more vellum one of these days and give it a whirl.
This could look really pretty with different size flower punches, and also different shapes. I just have one simple shape at the moment but imagine a slightly more detailed Hawaiian flower, or something with more angular petals, they could look really beautiful layered together. There are so many possibilities! What shape punch do you think would work well with this concept? I’d love to hear your ideas!
Have a lovely week everyone, cheers! Allison
the 3 R's blog 
OOOH! Look what you’ve gone and done! This is gorgeous, great work as usual Allison! I am a fan of the flowers here, especially in vellum. I think a neat twist would be some of the leaf die cut shapes out there, that would be very pretty too! Keep up the good work 🙂
Thanks Jesse! I can always count on you to commment on new posts, 🙂 I think leaf shapes would be gorgeous! Maybe if you could find like a slightly colored vellum, ooh!! I’ll have to be on the lookout the next time I’m in an art supply store.
(First time I’ve commented, I think.)
This really is lovely. Can I ask what diameter of shade and what size of flower punch you used here? The largest punch I can find online is 2 1/4 inch but your shade looks as if the flowers are larger than that?
This site really is an inspiration. I am the least creative person ever and every time I see something like this, I wonder why some people’s brains can create and mine can’t. 😦
Thanks for such lovely ideas.
Karen (Scotland)
Thank you Karen! Welcome, I’m glad you commented. Don’t feel too bad, sometimes my brain gets TOO creative for its own good… And that’s why I love craft blogs, sometimes your brain gets stuck on something and you just need a burst of inspiration from someone else!
Let’s see, well the lantern was 12 inches in diameter, a nice standard size I use a lot. And the flower punch is approximately 3 inches I believe, here’s a link to the one I used: http://www.amazon.com/Ek-Success-PSPXL005-X-Large-Flower/dp/B001CEAOC2/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1322596968&sr=8-4
It all really depends on the final look you are going for, I think a variety of flower sizes could be really pretty as well, and give you a more varied look for the finished product. One problem I found with the flower shape is that sometimes the paper would get caught on the pokey bits, and would tear as it was coming out of the punch, but usually that only effected the exterior cut out pieces and not the actual flowers.
Allison
Thanks for the info on the punch! I can find that punch on the UK ebay so I might give this a go when we do my little girl’s room. I was thinking different shades of pink (hate pink myself but my little girl will delight in a pink, flowery shade.) I’ll see what I can find in vellum.
Thanks again!
🙂
Karen (Scotland)
Hi Allison
Do you sell these anywhere?
HI Amanda,
I just responded to your Etsy inquiry. Thanks, Allison
Beautiful, Allie! It would be perfect in a little girl’s room, and I love the idea of vellum leaves too. I’ve seen some really pretty green shades of vellum. Not sure I’ve seen giant leaf punches, but they wouldn’t be hard to cut by hand from rectangles cut in half and folded.
This is simply gorgeous! The light it casts is so pretty. I LOVE your blog 🙂
Today I discovered your blog … smart and nice … great !!
So I have a dumb question… do you have a plug in your ceiling where a fixture would normally be or do you have to wire it in?
I don’t have any plugs or hardwire sockets in my ceilings, at least not in my living room) so I just hang a cord off of a hook and then run it down the wall to a plug. Does that help answer your question?
I am just in love with this light! Well done and thanks for sharing! I’m wondering how you are able to not have the wires from the lantern show through? Are you using thick vellum or just putting lots of layers on it or what’s your secret, if you don’t mind sharing?
This is so pretty……I’ve put a link on my blog. Thank you for sharing.
What a beautiful lamp! Someday when I am not busy doing dishes or organizing my house I will make one. What kind of glue do you use?
For this light, as with basically all of them, I used my hot glue gun. With the vellum you actually can slightly see the glue spots, but I didn’t think it was too big a problem… White craft glue would probably also work, I just like the speed of the glue gun.
Thanks for sharing! What a cute idea. I have some of my grandma’s old violin music that might be fun to cut in flower shapes…since I don’t play the violin 🙂 I think I even have your same punch
Love this! Encountered your whimsical works on Pinterest! In your post, you said you might make more with colored flowers, but that was even more work. Couldn’t you just change out the light bulb with a colored one? Seems like that would be easier on a person. Again, thanks for all your great ideas. I’m off to check out all your other clever ones.
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Dear Allison,
I discovered your blog yesterday and since that, there are so many ideas flying through my mind and I hate having exams now because I rather want to be creative…
Anyway..
I have a question: you say you use “vellum” for your works. I don’t know the word nd checked out the dictionary and wiki but it told me that vellum is made from animal skin…?
So I thought it probably means something else..? Can you help me with this one?
And keep up the good work, I love your stuff 😉
Greetings from Germany,
Melanie
Ps: I want to try the black ad white plastic bag lamp in a different color 😉 I’ll send some pictures when it’s finished.
Hi Melanie,
Vellum used to be made out of animal skin but now the word just means a thicker tracing paper. Sometimes it’s also called Mylar. It’s just a nice paper that is slightly translucent. We used it for architectural drafting in school. I hope this helps! Definitely I’d love to see photos if you make a plastic bag light in another color.
Cheers! Allison
que pena sei nada em ingles mais linda esta luminarias gostaria de saber que papel usou para fazer estas flores…
It’s a very interesting idea ! It can be used to decorate home and make the ambient more pleasant. The idea of using newspaper or other used paper, Is very important to help us to make something useful with something that would be discarded.
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Hi where can one purchase these lights ???
How did you do it in a circular format? Is there a structure or frame inside the pendant?
This is really lovely. Thank you for the inspiration!
I love this lamp! What kind and size of flower punch did you use? And what weight of the vellum paper? Thank you!
Hi, sorry for the delay in responding. Honestly, I have no idea what weight vellum, it was a leftover roll I had from an architecture program. But it wasn’t too thick. As for the flower punch, I think it was about 3 inches, but the company has since discontinued that size.
Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful! Allison
Where do you get the paper lanterns?
There are many sources, two inexpensive options are the Paper Lantern Store and Luna Bazaar.
-Allison