Printed Lanterns

Justin Morken from Hope Lutheran Church in Fargo, ND brings us these awesome printed paper lanterns.

From Justin: This year’s Christmas set was inspired the warm glow of paper lanterns peppering traditional German christkindl markets. Each design was created in Illustrator and mocked up in SketchUp before the build. The art for each lantern was printed on bond paper by an engineering firm specializing in large format architectural prints. The art was cut out and a wire was hot glued into a fold along each edge. Wherever two faces meet, the wires are twisted together at each end of the seam. Once the lanterns were assembled, they were wired with a 100watt LED lamp. Two lamps were wired into the larger lanterns. In all, there was 400sq.ft of art, 120 glue sticks, 2500ft of fencing wire, 600ft of power cord, and 42 LED bulbs. I actually built two duplicate sets: one for each campus. I can no longer feel my thumbs.

There are 18 lamps total, representing all the members of the traditional nativity scene: three shepherds, three kings, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the stars above. In addition to the bulbs in each lamp, the scene is up-lit with 6 Chauvet Colorband fixtures and washed with 4 Q-Wash fixtures.