Make your own faux-stained-glass lanterns

A couple of days ago I heard a radio commercial that changed my life. In the radio ad, a tenor-voiced jeweler was bragging that his products are "rigorously crafted". My ear caught that phrase like a head cold and it's still with me.

I've never crafted anything rigorously. I'm more of a slap-dash girl. I like attempting new things badly rather than getting very good at one thing.

Maybe you're a little like me; a barnacle on the upward slope of the learning curve. We'll never find ourselves surfing down the other side of that pretty arc. We're not interested in being good. We're interested in being interested.

We'll try anything once, and after the wounds heal maybe we'll try it a second time. But doing something over and over again may bore us. Or it may mean we're married. But either way, we need ways to stay interested. Cheap ways.

So, it came to pass that after hearing the radio commercial, I decided to make lanterns to line the driveway so my relatives could easily back in for the big party. (My relatives always back in. They can get away faster when the cops show up.)

Typical of a serious amateur, I had huge ambitions. I didn't want to make the traditional style luminaria (a votive candle set into a small paper bag weighted with sand; called farolitos in Mexico, where they were invented).

So I came up with a lantern made from poor man's stained glass, which is really waxed paper. My lanterns welcome the weary traveller with a cheery glow that says, "The punch is spiked, pass it on."

Here are the steps:

1. Cut a sheet of waxed paper to a length of about 30 inches and lay it out on some newspaper, shiny side up.
2. Grate crayons over half of the paper. (Use several crayons at once or it takes forever.)
3. Fold the waxed paper in half, place paper towels over the surface, and press with a hot iron. The crayon shards will melt into rivers of colour that look like the backdrop for a high school dance in the '70s.
4. Remove the paper towels.
5. Fold the kaleidoscopic paper along top and bottom edges, 1/2" at top and 1-1/2" along the bottom.
6. Unfold the bottom and make evenly spaced cuts every inch or so.
7. Use a roll of paper towels to shape the waxed paper into a cynlinder. Tape up the long seam using Scotch Magic Tape, which can be repositioned if necessary.
8. Stand the paper-towel roll up, hang the cylinder over it, bottom up, and tape the flaps closed. If there's a hole left in the center of the bottom, tape it up too.
9. Turn the farolito right-side up. Pour a couple of inches of sand or dry concrete mix (or corn meal if that's all you've got) into the bottom of the lantern to make it stable in case the wind comes up.
10. Place a tealight in the sand, centering it so the flame won't come close to the paper.
11. Line the walkway or driveway with the lanterns and light them with a barbecue lighter. Admire your art installation.

Note

If I ever tried anything twice I would probably make my farolitos much more colourful next time by grating a lot more crayon. But I'm planning, rigorously, never to do anything twice until I reach the age where my memory is so bad that everything feels like the first time.