String Lantern

The craziest project we have done so far - the patience, frustration, hard work and failures that went into this project probably made the end result most worth it.

Materials and Tools

The glue: 

• 1 cup corn starch
• 3 cups water
• 3 tablespoons salt
• 10 drops of essential oil (we used lavender)
• A pot

The lantern:

• 1 ball of white yarn
• 1 rubber exercise ball
• 1 large plastic container
• 1 large plastic bag to cover the working area
• Rubber gloves

Step 1:

We decided to make our own glue, just because fabric glue was quite expensive and not so easy to find. This actually was very easy (also because I think we made it 3 times - because of the number of fails we had).

Step 2:

We added the cup of corn starch to the pot (although its very easy to clean, we recommend using a old pot you don't use for cooking). And slowly added the water to this, while stirring constantly. We made sure the corn starch was completely diluted before turning the heat on.

Step 3:

We turned the heat on to low, and started stirring. Although this took a really long time, we ensured the heat was on low to prevent any lumps. We continued to stir it until the solution started to thicken. 

Step 4:

When we achieved our desired consistency (you and add more water if it gets too thick). We turned the heat off to let the glue cool down. Once it came down to room temperature, we added 10 drops of lavender oil. The purpose of the oil is as a preservative.

Step 5:

The first thing we did was pour the glue in the large plastic container and soaked the entire roll of yarn into it. Wearing our rubber gloves, we got wrapping. This definitely was not as easy as we thought it would be and we learned the hard way. Our first try, our glue was too thick and we attempted to layer it on AFTER wrapping the yarn around the ball, which ended up in a big disaster. We also cellophaned the entire ball - which just made it more slippery and did not help us at all.

Step 6:

Anyways, the second time around, we used the pre-soaked sticky yarn and slowly wrapped this around the ball. We had to make sure that the thread was really tight while we were wrapping it. Also, on the top of the ball (where the stopper is), we made sure to leave a large gap where we would eventually use to fit the lightbulb. 

Step 7:

I think we went on wrapping for 2 hours until we were sure we had all the right holes covered up and felt the lantern was thick enough. We let this rest and dry on the large plastic bowl for at least 1 week (when we felt the glue was completely dried). We were so skeptical that the glue wouldn't harden and we would have to go onto round 3 (because we don't believe in giving up) - but thankfully this wasn't the case. 

Step 8:

After the glue was completely dry, we removed the stopper on the ball to deflate it and let all the air out, with the help of an air pump, some casualties, and a lot of careful maneuvering we were able to remove the exercise ball from inside of our lantern. 

We then slowly eased the lightbulb into the gap we had left and voila!

Before:

After: