How to Make Luminarias

It's a familiar sight around the holidays: paper-bag luminarias — filled with sand and twinkling candles — guiding friends and family down a sidewalk or lane. Our twists on the paper lantern are designed for spring, but the message is the same: a warm light always means a warm welcome, a good time, a celebration. These luminarias — made of tin, paper, glass, even fishbowls and cardboard carryout containers — can shed light inside or out.

Craft designer Michael Basler likes to use a decoupage technique on fishbowls and glass vases (see next page). On our versions, we overlapped red and white rice paper for a checkerboard effect and alternated stripes on a glass chimney.

More ideas and tips:

• To add stability to the cylindrical and rectangular rice-paper lanterns, glue or tape thin strips of bendable cardboard to the tops and bottoms of the larger lanterns and use dowels in the corners.

• Give a simple paper tube the star treatment with a rubber stamp and gold ink. Cut each star point to let the light shine through.

• To make the "to go" luminarias, use a carryout container as a template.

• The "tin" lantern is really craft aluminum with a design poked into it using an awl and a golf ball (trace a design onto paper, attach the paper to the tin and punch out the design). Curve the aluminum into a cylinder, poke holes in the overlapping pieces and secure with wire.

• For more free-form illumination, shape flexible mesh around votive candleholders.