Make Your Own Japanese Lantern

A trip to a garden centre will tell you how expensive are garden ornaments, but a variety of these can be made for less than twenty quid.
All you need is a few bags of ready-mix fine concrete, some sand and cement and some cement dye.
The molds were made from scrap timber and plastic containers. I used a four-foot square of contiplas to work on. Basically, it's concrete mix with a thick layer of dyed cement mortar over the top. Before it goes off, you can carve edges with the side of a chisel blade. I used an ice cream tub to form the recess in the top to take the lamp fitting. The design I took from a book on Japanese crafts, this style is hundreds of years old.







This was made the same way. They are both just over 4' tall.





Then I got adventurous. This is nearly 6' tall.





Both lamps are illuminated by 12 volt re-cycled pool lamps, controlled by a switch in the lounge. Other switches control the lamps, spots and fairy lights in the garden..

 

wow thats fab well done DR

 

Wow! That's great!
I see the sides are 4 separate bits, how did you make them look like one continuous box?

 

Thanks for the interest.

It's quite easy, you treat the sides like bricks, they are in two different sizes so they form a square. With mortar applied where they butt together and top and bottom, they are very secure, I then applied a thin screed to the edges to hide the joins.

 

It is very nice DH.