Waldorf Inspired Autumn Lanterns - DIY Family Crafts

A cozy autumn display featuring colorful pumpkins, handmade decorations, and small wooden figures representing the months of November and December, along with natural elements like leaves and chestnuts.

Autumn is my favourite season. I love the beauty of the trees, the crisp air, busy animals and getting to snuggle up warm with my crochet! In this blog post I’m going to share with you our Autumn lanterns. I’ve updated (2025) the post to ensure all links are working and added a new lantern iris folding project. If you’re looking for Autumn gift ideas head to this post. Looking for Autumn book recommendations? Head to this post.

A display of autumn-themed children's books and decorative pumpkins on a wooden shelf, featuring titles like 'The Apple Cake' and 'Hodge the Hedgehog'.

We love making changes to our nature table in our home and adding our homemade creations. If you’d like to see our nature table set up there’s a link here.

So, let’s dive in to Autumn lanterns. I’ve made two different styles, one a silhouette style and the other a pumpkin. I’ve also added a project that’s suitable for slightly older children and adults – an iris folding lantern.

A homemade autumn lantern shaped like a pumpkin, illuminated from within, featuring a twine handle and a star-shaped decorative piece made of vellum.

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Autumn Homemade DIY Lanterns

Both of these ideas I made for an Arts and Crafts subscription box back in September 2019. For all the resources please see the resource section at the bottom of the post.

Autumn arts and crafts - autumn lanterns - pumpkin lantern and silhouette lantern for your nature table or seasonal display. Fall craft ideas - squirrel - hedgehog - pumpkin.

Silhouette Autumn Lantern

What You Need

Cardboard or other card stock – we used a recycled delivery box
Black Paint (or another colour of your choosing)
Scissors
Pencil
Crayons
Vellum
Glue
Optional stencils/ template (you can find my template below for very simple Autumn designs)

Download “Autumn Simple Template” Autumn-Template.pdf – Downloaded 645 times – 22.23 KB

How To Make

A pair of yellow scissors and a gray pencil resting on a piece of brown cardboard.

I’ve used the side of a packaging box, but you could easily make a free standing one that just slots into a postcard holder and you pop a light behind.

A sketched outline on cardboard featuring a squirrel and a hedgehog among trees, with a blue pencil lying next to it.

First draw a rectangle about 1-1.5cm in from the edge of your piece of card. Either free hand or using the stencils above draw on your Autumn silhouette scene.

Close-up of a cardboard piece with a small hole and hand-drawn outlines of various shapes, likely for a craft project.

Adult help needed for the next bit. Poke a starting hole in your scene. Older children may be able to cut the shapes out themselves, but younger children will need this completed by an adult.

A cardboard lantern with cut-out silhouettes of trees and a squirrel, resting on a patterned fabric surface.

If you’re cutting for them they can move onto the next step straight away.

A child using colorful crayons to draw on a piece of vellum, with additional crayons and a patterned tablecloth in the background.

A piece of art with vibrant autumn colors created using crayons, showcasing shades of red, orange, and yellow.

Using Autumnal colours, colour a piece of the vellum using crayons. We love using crayon blocks.

A flat lay image featuring a book titled 'Conscious Creativity' surrounded by colorful art materials, including crayons, a palette of paint, felt shapes, and wooden letters spelling 'me' on a light background.

Stockmar beeswax crayons have a wonderful feel and scent to them.

A handmade silhouette autumn lantern featuring a scene with trees and a squirrel, crafted from cardboard and painted in brown tones.

Now paint the silhouette. I’ve used black which turned a lovely dark brown when it dried on the cardboard. You can paint whatever colour you have available. If you’ve used a piece of cardstock you may not want to paint at all. Leave to dry.

A jar of natural paper glue on a table with a paintbrush beside it, along with a piece of colored vellum and a cut-out cardboard frame.

Turn over the silhouette so you are working on the reverse. Measure and cut a piece of vellum to fit your scene. Apply glue to your Autumn scene and press the vellum firmly in place. Use something heavy to secure in place and leave to dry.

A handmade silhouette lantern featuring a squirrel and trees, illuminated from behind with a warm light.

You can glue and peg the top together or I chose to use some twine to hold the lantern together. Place an LED tea light inside or behind your lantern for a beautiful effect.

Depending upon the age of your children depends upon what aspect of the lantern they may do. It could be a family project with each member doing their own part. Colouring on the vellum can be done from a very young age depending upon the crayons you use. If you have a go please do come and share a photo in the NEW Facebook group. I always love to see people’s makes.

A DIY pumpkin lantern with a small LED light inside, surrounded by other decorative pumpkins and nature-inspired elements.

Pumpkin Autumn Lantern

This is another project where even very young children can get involved.

What You Need

Scissors
Pencil
Crayons
Vellum
Twine/ Yarn/ Wool
Optional stencil/ template – find the template for the leaf below:

Download “Autumn Simple Template” Autumn-Template.pdf – Downloaded 645 times – 22.23 KB

How To Make – Step by Step Autumn Lantern Guide

This is a great one for beginning scissor users! It perfect for developing those fine motor control skills by cutting in lines.

Close-up of a piece of vellum paper with faint pencil lines drawn lengthwise, demonstrating preparation for a craft project.

Using the vellum, draw lines length-ways about 1.5cms apart. It doesn’t need to be exact but if you’re looking to introduce a little ‘maths’ learning in a playful way then using a ruler for this part will develop measure skills.

A pair of scissors resting on a white surface next to strips of translucent vellum paper, ready for crafting.

Carefully, cut along the lines to make long thin strips (they don’t need to be perfect – it adds to the character if they’re not). Either using the stencil or freehand draw out pumpkin leaves onto your vellum and cut these out. You can make any number of pumpkin leaves.

A child's hand holding colorful strips of vellum while working on an autumn lantern project.

Colour each strip using red, orange and yellow crayons. Colour the leaves green. You can make your pumpkin any colour you like or a full rainbow – colours are just suggestions. If your children are very little you might want to get them to colour in the whole sheet of vellum BEFORE you cut with scissors. This way they can scribble away to their hearts content.

A collection of colored vellum strips in autumn hues, with three blocks of crayons in red, yellow, and orange placed alongside them.

Adult help needed – make a small hole in both ends of the strips and in the stalks of the leaves. My daughter loves using this small single hole punch. I prefer a little more grip and use these.

A handmade autumn-themed lantern crafted from an orange band with a decorative green and orange star cutout, secured with twine.

Gather all of one end of the strips together and insert twine/ yarn/ ribbon. Next thread the string through the other end of the strips. Lastly, add the leaves. Tie together loosely. If you don’t have anything to attach together then you can use glue to stick the end of the strip together like a paper chain.

A handmade pumpkin lantern made from colored vellum and twine, decorated with a star-shaped cutout, set against a backdrop of various pumpkins and autumn-themed decorations.

Now, spread the strips out and before completely covering insert a LED tea light for the magic to happen.

A handmade orange pumpkin lantern with a star cutout, illuminated from within, surrounded by small pumpkins and autumn-themed decorations.

I adore how magical these look. Making things together for your home is such a wonderful experience. Children adore looking at things they’ve created proudly adoring their home for all to see. If you have a go please do come and share a photo in the NEW Facebook group – I can’t wait to see your makes.

A decorative iris folding lantern with red, orange, and yellow layers, featuring a red tassel, positioned on a wooden surface.

Iris Folding Handmade Lantern

I originally designed this for Lunar New Year but you could easily make this for Autumn and celebrating the Autumn Equinox. I think I’d be tempted to change the surround colour from black to and orange, red or brown. If you haven’t discovered the wonderful art of iris folding before then I’d check out this post first.

A handmade iris folding lantern design featuring colorful paper strips in shades of purple, yellow, blue, and brown, placed within a square frame on a wooden surface.

You can find the full free pattern and instructions for creating this beautiful lantern here. This pattern is slightly more advanced as it’s a little fiddly. If you’ve not tried iris folding before then I’d recommend starting with this square design. My daughter started exploring iris folding at the age of six and I’d say that’s a good age to start. With support you could do this with younger children.

Other Autumnal Light Ideas

Rolling beeswax sheets into candles is an activity we like to do to welcome in the different seasons. You’ll find our Summer candles project here. You can then easily adapt for Autumn.