Easiest way to make a lantern in minecraft?

if iron's tight early on, you can just pick them up instead. plenty of structures have lanterns lying about, break them with a pickaxe and they drop. they hang from the underside of a block or a chain as well, just aim at the bottom face.

Torch in the middle, 8 iron nuggets round it. Nuggets come from putting an iron ingot in the crafting grid (gives 9) or smelting old iron tools and armour. Swap the torch for a soul torch and you get the blue soul lantern.