materials: 

• Balloon

• Paper towels

• Paintbrush

• Printed-out photos (on printer paper)

• String

• Needle

• tea light(s)

step-by-step instructions:

1. Mix an even amount of Mod Podge and water to create the paper mache mixture.

2. take a balloon and blow it up to a medium size

3. Take your paintbrush scoop some Mod Podge mixture onto the bristles of your brush and spread it on the surface of the balloon where you will be pasting that piece of paper towel.

4. Rip a piece of paper towel, stick it to the spot where you spread the Mod Podge, and paint the Mod Podge mixture on top of the paper towel as well to seal it.

5. Continue steps 3 & 4 until you have the whole balloon covered in pieces of paper towel. Make sure there is more than one layer of paper towels.

6. Let the paper towels FULLY dry before completing the next steps.

7. Print out the photos you want to use in the size that you want them in on normal computer paper, not photo paper. It may take a few tries to get the size of images you want.

8. Rip the images the way you want, and/or lay them out the way you want to create whatever effect you want. (For example: I did a sunset collage and ripped the images to create a timelapse effect.)

9. Paint a layer of the Mod Podge mixture on the surface where you want your photo. 

10. Paste your photos in whatever layout you want, and spread Mod Podge on top of them to make sure they are all flat to the surface with no wrinkles or bumps. 

11. Wait for your lantern to fully dry, and then you take a line of string and needle and tie the string to the loop of the needle. 

12. Loop the needle through opposite sides of the lantern near the opening so it looks like this: 

13. This is so that the lantern can be hung up. 

14. Take one or two tea lights, turn them on, and put them inside the lantern. Now you have your own personalized paper mache lantern!