This year when putting together the FunLab Christmas window display, I decided to feature origami stars. Little did I know that folding those adorable stars was way beyond my origami level. While I was trying to figure out an alternative way to generate lots of stars, I ran across this great Australian project: One Million Stars to End Violence. Besides being a very interesting initiative, they posted woven stars that even I could reproduce! The next question was, “Could small hands make them?”. After trying ribbon (as shown in the original video) and scrapbooking paper, we discovered that construction paper was the easiest paper for little artists to use. See how we made our FunLab version of 8 POINT CONSTRUCTION PAPER STARS.
You will need:
Construcion paper
Scissors
Let’s get started:
Step 1: Cut out 2 cm x 15 cm strips from colored construcion paper. You will need 4 strips per star.
Step 2: Fold the paper in half lengthwise.
Step 3: Fold the paper in half again to form a “V”.
Step 4: Take two folded strips and form a “L” as shown in the first image – if you look carefully you will note that the green “V” is threaded through the red “V”. Add another green strip passing over the red pieces. Add the final strip which is red. Weave through the green “V”. You should have a square with alternating colors.
Step 5: Fold down the top piece of green paper in the upper left hand side of the square.
Step 6: Rotate the square 90 degress clockwise. Once again fold down the top piece of paper in the left hand corner. Continue until you have formed a woven square as seen in the image below with two pieces of paper extending off of each side.
Step 7: Starting in the upper right hand corner, fold paper to form a triangle.
Step 8: Fold paper down to form a “double” triange.
Step 9: Fold triange in half. Tuck in extra paper and trim. In this case, tuck the green piece into the red square under it.
Step 10: Go around the square repeating setps 7 to 9 every other piece of paper to form the first 4 points of the star.
Step 11: Turn star over so that the extending paper is on the right hand upper side of the square. Repeat to steps 7 to 9 to create remaining points.
The stars are completed. We strung twine through the stars and filled the shopwindow with our version of the “Stars to end Violence”. What better way to celebrate the holidays! We had so much fun making these stars that my little crafting assitants wanted to use them for other holiday trimmings. Come see what we did with out extra stars!
Merry Christmas 2014
Alison
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