Monday, November 14, 2011

Martinmas Lantern Walk

Martinmas Lantern

This was our very first year celebrating Martinmas and had a lot of fun creating special lanterns for our lantern walk :)

Papier mache

We started by heading outdoors during a break in the rain showers we've been having and collected red japanese maple leaves, deep purple leaves from a smoke tree, yellow leaves from some of the phlox in the yard and then started to paper mache our balloons with a drippy mix of flour and water for the glue and strips of crepe paper :)

The first layer was just paper mache and then we placed our leaves on top in patterns and just randomly and then covered them with one more layer of paper mache to help them stay in place without worrying that they would start to lift or fall off. I don't have any photos of us actually doing the paper mache because I was right in there with the kids slopping paste and paper on my own balloon *grin*.

Shrinking

We left them to dry overnight by the fire and in the morning the balloons had started shrinking and were pulling away from the sides of the paper...

Papier Mache

leaving us with great big giant bowls that I punched 4 holes into around the top and then tied strings onto them for hanging :)

Martinmas Lantern Walk

The children wore their cloaks pretending to be like St. Martin in his cape when he came upon the freezing man outside the city gates and then we headed out into the darkness. I retold them them story of Martin and the poor man that I used from Melisa's blog and we sang the following song from out of my Autumn Wynstone Press booklet :)

The sunlight fast is dwindling,
My little lamp needs kindling.
Its beam shines far in darkest night,
Dear Lantern, guard me with your light.

Martinmas Lantern Walk

We had so much fun walking with our lanterns glowing in the dark. Although I think next time we might do it a little earlier as when it gets dark around here it is pitch black and there isn't a street light in sight for a great many miles. I had to keep myself from thinking of bears and other wild animals that love to lurk in the dark around here LOL.

Aglow

I just love how they glow so brightly showing the silhouettes of their leaves through the paper mache. We've brought them into our family room and hung them by the window so that we can enjoy them in the evenings with the flicker of candle light dancing from within them :)

I hope you had a lovely Martinmas day to and I would love to see photos of your lanterns if you shared some on your blogs!

Hugs,
Rosina

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I really love the lanterns - what a great idea. The leaves shine up so well. We did something similar at halloween and yes it got VERY messy! They look the part in their cloaks. What fun!

karen said...

these are beautiful lanterns! Sounds like a lovely celebration

nunu said...

cool celebration rosina! love the cloaks and lanterns...

charlotte said...

they really are the most wonderful lanterns I have seen in AGES! Beautiful, well done. I have to say we didn't make our school walk, Arthur is only in the mother and child group and there aremany more years when it wont feel too stressful just getting there!

Cheryl said...

Your lanterns are wonderful. What a lovely way to celebrate. I'm glad the bears didn't join. Brings a whole lot more meaning to not treading on the cracks in the pavement. Although I suspect you probably don't have too many stretches of pavements!

verdemama said...

Those lanterns turned out beautifully, and I love the pic with them in their cloaks. How fitting!

house full of jays said...

Those photos in the dark are so cool! Looks like fun!