DIY Scrap Wood Block Lantern That’s Beautiful

A DIY scrap wood block lantern is a smart idea.  The structure of this lantern reminds me of Frank Lloyd Wright.  This is an easy project but it does take some time and patience to complete.  If you paint the blocks in primary colors it will look like a Lego lantern.  It’s a great project for putting your stamp on.  Thanks to One Dog Woof for the neat idea.

Here’s the tutorial for my scrap wood lantern, in case you have an armload of scrap wood you’d like to use up!

The brainstorming process for this project was a little bit crazy. Once I decided I wanted to use wood, I googled “wood scraps” just to look at some pictures.  Originally, I looked at some segmented wood turning projects, but pretty much got shot down by my wood working friends (and Drew) for being completely off my rocker.  So, finally, I caught a glimpse of a wood lantern somewhere on the interwebs, with no name, no title, no instructions, just a glowing image of a wood “thing” with holes in it.  I figured since there were no rounded edges, this was at least “do-able”!

So here we go!

Supplies:

Scrap wood pieces
lots of clamps
table saw
wood glue

Instructions:

1.  Collect a bunch of wood – preferably already square.  By square, I don’t mean the shape, I mean, the that the sides and corners are not crooked.

2.  Cut, rip, sand your pieces into assorted shapes and sizes.  I didn’t have a plan, so I just cut enough wood to half fill a plastic bag.

3.  Start piecing your wood blocks together.  Do it on a table so the inner side is flat.  Try to keep enough variation in color, texture, wood grain in the design, and you can also try to piece it so that you never have to depend on an exact sizing.  I pieced mine together so each piece sort of depended on the piece before it, and everything was slightly adjustable.  Also, it is helpful to create a 90 degree frame to build up against, so you know your panel will be square. Ooh, also remember to take a picture of your panel before you take it apart to start glueing!

Images from One Dog Woof.

For the full instructions visit One Dog Woof.