How to make a star out of paper strips

It's the 1st of December already and we are thinking about Christmas and start living in anticipation....
although this year I have no idea where we will spend our holiday as we are hoping to move home but it hasn't been confirmed ....

Today I will tell you about something that I used to make for Christmas with my father when I was a child: paper stars. They are quite easy to make.

All you need is some paper strips, about 1-1.5 cm (half an inch) wide and about 30cm long (12-13") or wider and longer for bigger stars. You can buy them ready cut in craft shops. To make one star take 4 paper strips and fold them in half.

Arrange them like this, so they insert into each other:

Now pull the strips' ends in 4 directions to make it tight. Now you have 4 double paper strips pointing in 4 directions. What you need is 8 single strips, 2 on each side. So you start with folding 1 single strip on top of the square.

Go around the square anti clockwise and continue folding single strips. When you get to the 4th strip pull it under the first strip and tighten up. It helps to fold the ends of the strips first, to make it easier to insert them and pull them through.

Now start folding the strip like this:

Fold it again (inwards) and pull through under the strip in the square:

It should look like this:

Then go around the square clockwise and repeat the same action on 3 remaining sides. When you have finished doing this the piece should look like this:

Turn the piece upside down and repeat the last action, so you end up with a flat 8 pointed star and the paper strips sticking out of the middle on both sides:

Now you start making this star 3-dimensional. Take 1 strip, fold it under and over like in the picture, insert it under other strip in the middle and pull through so it comes out of one of the 8 points of the star.

The first of the middle points of the star should look like this when finished:

Continue around the star anti clockwise, until you have 4 middle points:

Turn the piece over and repeat the same action on the other side:

Cut the remaining paper strips off. Your star is ready. You can use these stars to decorate a Christmas tree or in any way you can think of. I think they look pretty good just as a table decoration:

Happy star making.

Yolanta x

How to make a star out of paper strips