✂ [MYOT - Make Your Own Toys!] Handmade Lantern!! ✂ [MYOT 自製玩具系列] 呦厚，中秋提燈籠啊！✂
[MYOT - Make Your Own Toys!] is my series focusing on making toys for small kids with daily life materials, a.k.a trash, that every parent can do it without any skills. Love is needed though. It costs nothing but your time and you can do it with your kids, making it a special time for you. Besides, it’s green earth compatible and you might even blog your experience here and earn! Use #myot tag so we can all share your fun!
This time I am gonna share a toy that I made more than half an year ago! Now seems a good time to share this because I have just recently been educated by fellow Hong Kong Steemians that they actually celebrate the Mid Autumn Festival by lanterns!! So I don’t have to wait a whole year to share this! Woohoo
So, It was the lantern festival back in the beginning of the Chinese lunar new year. My son's kindergarten asked us the parents to prepare a lantern for him so they would take them out and have fun carrying lanterns in the park. So we thought ok we need a lantern so we went to buy one from the market. This ***Patrick-from-Spongebob*** cute little lantern was the one we bought.
You think it's cute!? ***No!!!*** This is *not* a lantern at all!! This is just a ***fancy electrical moving object with a popular animation character (and maybe even without image authorization)***. I can live with the fact that lanterns no longer use candles, but use leds to light, but there is no way that a lantern is *electrified* so it can move by some buttons!! If so, why call it a lantern? everything comes with it would mean nothing at all...
So I decided to make one myself - partly because I was too angry and need something for diversion. Luckily we just had a box of fantastic cheese tarts from a Japanese store in Taipei. It was sooooooooo delicious and the point is ... we had an empty box that looked so pretty and suitable for making a lantern out of it!
So, after contemplating it over in my brain, I prepared the tools needed and lucky again that I managed to find something that could make it work and make it look good - a small flashlight (yeah! ***the light source***!!), a spared red diamond-shaped auspicious paper with a FU (*福*，happiness) character on it and a red decorative lantern-shaped ornament that can go with my lantern... All good. So blessed! :)
### <center>Things You Need</center> <table><tr> <td>https://steemitimages.com/800x1600/https://steemitimages.com/DQmNjvPNSsygYhtBR8r5Yme3NSgrAEgqFestgkXwL74JivZ/IMG_20170209_004732.jpg</td> <td>https://steemitimages.com/800x1600/https://steemitimages.com/DQmdCKTWzjmVyVN9cz4ndbWqQBmQxEuRJZw3AT1AzZC1Wks/IMG_20170209_000016.jpg</td> </tr></table>
***
I did not photoshoot the whole process but you can see from below that I cut some holes of different shapes and even wrote some English letters beside them. Remember this was for kindergarten kids so always on the learning mode! :) We have *square, octagon, stars...* yeah, learning while playing!!
On top of the lantern, I cut a small hole so the flashlight can be used to carry the main body while providing the light! and on the bottom is the ornament hinged to it.
>我沒有好好將整個製作過程拍下，但你看圖就知道大概怎麼做的。我在盒子上打了許多各種形狀的洞，燈籠嘛，總是得讓光透出來，然後因為是幼兒的燈籠，所以用各種形狀，加上一點英文在旁邊，可以邊玩邊學習啊，Star... Oh, this is Square... 哈哈！好玩吧？盒子頂端打了一個小洞，讓手電筒的吊繩可以穿過，剛好成為提燈籠的地方；底部是那個小吊飾，也是要打個洞裝上去。
### <center>Carving and Attaching</center> <table><tr> <td>https://steemitimages.com/600x1200/https://steemitimages.com/DQmPt9B8ujGnJA4pCnVx5E4XzfJWpTYzhW8FJ79dHWNEVYT/IMG_20170209_000651.jpg</td> <td>https://steemitimages.com/600x1200/https://steemitimages.com/DQmTBXaz8LMJuRZVmtqKci7FjiM7Wum2FCbC8ojDrFKy753/IMG_20170209_005300.jpg</td> <td>https://steemitimages.com/600x1200/https://steemitimages.com/DQmTTTVVTyR1dsJGMGS7NgFffGtLZzygj9zwAHPHxNrLWNK/IMG_20170209_003427.jpg</td> </tr></table>
Now, let's turn on the flashlight! seems ready to roll!! See how I need to cut a *door* on the side so my son's little hand can reach the flashlight inside the box to turn on/off the light! It's just big enough for him, my hand is too big for it. Perfect kid's lantern again!
Oh, now let's meet the lantern and sit it upright. Looking good huh?
>把燈籠好好放好，看清楚成品吧！哇！真的是我做的嗎？有模有樣的呢！
### <center>Take a Good Look at it</center> <table><tr> <td>https://steemitimages.com/1200x800/https://steemitimages.com/DQmaWHF8EdXvY1A3gXKE1wj5V9Gd5xVUCheEo6k7Tde2Rmh/IMG_20170209_005504.jpg</td> <td>https://steemitimages.com/1200x800/https://steemitimages.com/DQmPTqSB6inBjbq4MQCGFGUKDUyaXp3xwZSdt5BqXKmN79o/IMG_20170209_005322.jpg</td> </tr></table>
***
It's no use if a lantern doesn't look good in the dark. So there is a final test to it. fingers crossed.
>燈籠要成為真正的燈籠，就必須接受黑暗的考驗。來吧，關燈見真章吧 ....
### <center>Drum rolls... Turn off the light!!</center>
Oh, man. It is even ***prettier*** in the dark!! It *is* a genuine lantern! :~
感人的一刻，燈火亮起，燈籠的古老意象，頓時來到今朝。我感動得快哭了都~~~~
The Happy Face of My Son
My son holding with my handmade lantern with his kindergarten classmates! See how other parents all settled for those they can found from the market. I don’t blame them at all. This is just the modern way of life, but sadly losing our traditions day by day. If I weren’t too angry about it and happened to come up with a MYOT idea, my son would be holding a similar lantern with his friends… I feel proud to have made it and gave my son a good memory…
What!? You cannot see any one in the frame? oh, I see… they are too shy.. should appear within the next 24 hours… lol [the truth is … I cannot find the photo tonight. But I am pretty sure I keep a copy in my office computer.]
Thank you for reading my #MYOT series! I encourage all of you to do the same and have fun with your kids! Last time we used a tissue box and this time a cookie box. See how important they are? Keep them! :)
