My son is a huge fan of the Star Wars universe and has been planning how to spend May the 4th for a few weeks. Over the last few days he’s enjoyed a glass of blue milk, made BB8 pancakes and even encased his Hans Solo figure in jelly. We had grand plans to make a special Star Wars Day cake but unfortunately it didn’t work as planned.

We also decorated the house for Star Wars Day. We hung Star Wars figures on a little tree in our living room and put our Star Wars Day wreath up. We wanted to add to our Star Wars Day decorations so made Star Wars Day tin can lanterns. I would love to say we came up with the idea but my 10 year old spotted it on Pinterest and wanted some tin can lanterns to place in the garden.

DIY Star Wars Day tin can lantern materials:

tin cans, washed with labels removed

hammer and nails

black paint

LED tea lights

How to make simple Star Wars Day lanterns:

First we filled our tin cans 3/4 full with water and placed them in the freezer. I’ve tried making holes in tin cans before and the metal bends easily, so filling them with ice makes them a lot stronger.

Whilst the tin cans were busy I got on with looking for some designs. I let my son choose his favourite Star Wars characters and he chose BB8, D0 and the Death Star. He chose a few really difficult characters too but these were the ones we compromised on. I found some pictures and re-sized them so they would fit on the tin cans, and printed them out.

When the water in the tin cans was totally frozen I took one out to work on. I attached the template of BB8 on the can, holding it in place with an elastic band. Then I took a nail, placed it on the design and hammered it through the side of the can. I had to experiment a little with the size of nail. If the nail was too large then the metal would start to go out of shape, even with the frozen ice inside. If the nail was too small then it would make a hole too small to let light through.

I wanted to punch enough holes so you could make out the Star Wars character so I followed the outline of BB8 and a few of the details. I did the same with my other designs.

To make the designs stand out I painted each tin can with black paint.

Then I added an LED tea light to really light up the Star Wars design.