Christmas Sliceform Lanterns

After having made sliceform sphere shaped lanterns for hubby's birthday and our granddaughter for Halloween, I thought I would challenge myself to make them as Christmas gift card holders for family and friends.

       

I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the photos in this post. I didn't realize until later that the fairy lights I had used to illuminate these lanterns were a bit too bright to get photos with good contrast to  clearly show the detail cuts inside each sphere.

If you look closely inside the sphere, you should be able to see Santa in his sleigh pulled by eight reindeer flying across the sky as a bunny and squirrel look on. The template to make this Christmas themed sliceform sphere was purchased  from designer M3DArt on Etsy.  

Each sphere required 15 sheets of 8.5 x 11 size cardstock and the finished size is about 6.25 inches in diameter. I used Neenah Exact Index 110 lb cardstock to cut the layers, but after assembling a dozen of these, I now know that a lighter weight cardstock, (maybe 80 lb?) would probably have cut cleaner and been easier to assemble.

I used a freebie template from 3D Fancy to make the octagonal base, which was designed with a space to house the light source for the lantern. I used strings of fairy lights with 20 LED bulbs, but as mentioned earlier, a string with less bulbs may have been a better choice.

I hot foiled and die cut my Happy Holidays sentiment using Simon Hurley's "Joyful Christmas Collection" Glimmer Plates and attached it to a fancy label which had been die cut using a very old Spellbinders "Fancy Tags Two" die set. This was then glued to the front of the base.

Under the base, I added a panel matted with gold foil board with our sentiment and half circle cuts to hold a gift card.

The lanterns to be hand delivered were wrapped in acetate bags tied with a festive gold bow.

Found a cute image of Santa in his sleigh which I thought was perfect for my hang tags. Instructions on how to light the lantern and where to find the gift card were printed inside.

Coolest thing about these spheres is how they collapse down to nearly flat, which made this gift super easy to mail to friends and family faraway.