It's Only a Paper Moon

One of those Oriental Trading Company catalogs came in the mail this week. Before committing it to the trash can, I flipped through it - just for fun. I was surprised to find products we'd actually use, including paper lanterns. But I knew they could be found for less! A little internet sleuthing yielded some deals.


Oriental Trading - limited colors (no yellow), accordion pleat design.
18" - 4.16/ea (6 for $24.99)
10" - 1.16/ea (12 for $13.99)

Ivory lantern
Paper Lantern Store & Asian Import Store - almost identical inventory. Tons more selection in style and color, lower prices AND free shipping if you spend $100+ at Asian Imports.
Irregular ribbed: 20" - 2.98/ea, 16" - 2.13/ea, 12" - 1.55/ea & 8" - 1.05/ea
Even ribbed: 20" - 2.33/ea, 16" - 1.63/ea & 12" - 1.20/ea

Natural irregular ribbed

Yellow and Light Yellow regular ribbed
Luna Bazaar - pretty much the same selection for lanterns, but easily more expensive. Not shopping here, even if it says Martha does. Martha probably gets wholesale discounts.

Our next step is figuring out how many lanterns we'll need. Looking at my reference photos, it seems like 5 between every tent pole is a good number. Fifty seems about right??


(personal photos)
I'm no good at guessing, even worse with math. Remember those "guess how many M&M's are in the jar" games? Yeah, well... I was always way off. For this reason (and to avoid spending money unnecessarily), we will bring a tape measure to get tent dimensions during our next venue visit. Once we know how many lanterns of each size/color we'll need, I'll hand off the electrical (LEDs and batteries) and technical (rigging and pulleys) details for Mr. P to handle. He happily adopted the lighting project and has researched the heck out of LED types. Dare I say I'm rubbing off on the boy?

This weekend's DIY projects have been successful enough to encourage further attempts. Our next project involves safety glasses and a tile saw. Details on our varying levels of success/failure later this week!

What type of DIY projects are you taking on? Are you DIY-ing to save money or to create a specific vision?