Tin Can Lanterns

Things to do in quarantine with tin cans. Lanterns! These just look like old cans during the day, but are really effective at night with the light shining through the holes.

All you need for this is a hammer, at least one nail and an old can.

1. Clean the cans and remove the labels

Clean the tins thoroughly and remove the label (which should come off cleanly if you hold the can under hot water). Smooth down any sharp or rough edges where the lid was removed by pinching them down towards the inside of the can with pliers.

2. Fill the cans with water and freeze them

With the cans full of frozen water it makes punching holes in them much easier and means that the cans do not dent.

3. Freeze the paper pattern onto the can

Draw or print out the pattern that you want to punch into your lantern. I used the four symbols for Earth, Air, Water and Fire from Avatar: The last Airbender. You could use geometric patterns, initials, symbols, pictures…

Even if you plan to freehand your pattern rather than drawing it beforehand, I would recommend covering the tin in paper anyway, as it stops the nail slipping on the frozen bare metal.

It can be hard to get paper to stick to a frozen can and you want to be able to remove it easily afterwards, so I found that the best method is to dampen your paper, put it in the right position, then pop the can back into the freezer. The paper freezes onto the can, then easily lifts off once you are finished.

4. Punch your design

Snuggle your frozen can into a towel or cloth so that it does not move, and using a nail and hammer, start punching your design into the can. You will not need much force at all - one light tap should be enough to punch through.

Keep repositioning the can so that you can always hammer directly downwards and work on a small area at a time. If the paper starts to become soft or to tear then re-freeze it for a few minutes.

Use different size nails for different holes, if required. I only used one nail, but varied the force that I used to get different sized holes. In my pattern I wanted a home-made effect, so I deliberately used different sized holes and a scattered the holes over the pattern, rather than trying to get them uniform and in lines.

5. Finish off the lantern

Punch a hole on either side of the top of the can for a handle. Use a a non-flammable handle such as wire; an old coat hanger bent into shape with pliers would make a sturdy hanger. I had some thinner garden wire so I twisted this through the holes to make handles.

I also had some greenhouse glass clips which I used to make a base for the lanterns. Punch six small holes in the bottom of the can for the clips and slip the long ends of the clips into these. The shape of the clips mean that they don’t fall out when the lantern is hanging up, and they keep the lantern off the surface if you want to use them on a table.