Lantern for the seasons

Where I am the winters get a little long.  To brighten it up a bit my kids and I made these paper lanterns.  My inspiration is a crab apple tree outside my front door & a roll of Sumi-e paper I have sitting on a shelf.  It has a wonderful luminosity to it so it is fun to find ways to show that off.

Supplies for this project are:
Sumi-E paper OR rice paper OR light weight white paper (like your standard printer paper)
black ink OR black paint
paintbrush
tissue paper in a variety of colors
glue stick
scissors
tape

First fold your paper into 4 equal sections.    I used a roll of paper so I measured each section to be 4 inches.  If you are using a sheet of paper fold it in half and then in half again.  Open it up and then crease each fold to make it box shape.  Unfold it and lay it flat.

In each section paint a tree- just the trunk and branches.

Cut some tiny red squares out of the tissue paper.  If you have a few different colors of red that will add to your picture.  If you don't it will still look good or you can color with markers on the red tissue paper to make more colors (that's just more work & my boys aren't patient enough to do that so we stuck with one red).
Using the glue stick put a dab of glue on a branch and stick a red square on it.  It does get a little tricky because sometimes the tissue paper sticks to your finger instead, so only do as many crab apples as your patience allows.  Doing one red square at time is best- if you try to put glue everywhere you want a red square the glue will dry before you are able to stick the red square on.  This is your winter tree.

For the spring tree cut out some pink squares and rectangles a little larger.  Again, a variety of pinks will add interest.  If you only want a few blossoms use the gluing technique for the red squares- put a dab of glue on the tree and then stick the rectangle on.  If you want the entire tree covered in blossoms do a line of glue on the tree, place a row of pink rectangles and then do another line of glue and stick a row of rectangles and so on.

For the summer tree repeat the same steps as the spring tree only using greens and yellows of tissue paper rectangles.  Since it is a crab apple tree you may add some tiny red squares if you want.

For the fall tree use oranges, yellows, reds, and/or brown.  You may want to fill your tree or put some at the bottom of the tree.

Once the glue has dried turn your paper over.  Fold the two side rectangles to meet in the center.  Tape the paper edges together.  Open it up and stand it up.  Place a votive candle or tea light (already in a glass or safe container so not to burn your paper) in the center of your "lantern".