Paper Star Ornaments

I love buying Christmas ornaments, but they get expensive and I don't want to spend my entire holiday budget on them, so I always make some to fill in the gaps. It's more economical that way and I'm still able to keep them and use them from year to year.

When I was preparing for the shoot I showed you yesterday, I decided I needed a tree full of white ornaments, which strangely, I seemed to have very few of. The store shelves were emptied of Christmas stock and I needed inexpensive ornaments I could make in bulk. I settled on a few paper options.

To make these stars, I used a leftover roll of white glittered giftwrap (I believe I purchased it at Michaels). I found that its lighter weight was perfect for folding stars, enabling crisp folds that kept their shape, much like origami paper. To support them, I simply glued them to shimmery cardstock.

The resulting ornaments were light as air (my big beef with heavy ornaments is how much they pull the tree branches down), simple, but pretty and sparkly as can be. Best of all, they cost pennies to make.

I'm completely out of glittered wrap at the moment (having made these a year ago), so this tutorial is shown with Quartz Stardream text paper, which is a good weight, in case you want to use something other than glittered paper.

MATERIALS:

Star template (See below)
Glittered wrapping or other lightweight paper (not glittered cardstock)
Pencil
Scissors
Bone folder (optional)
Cardstock
Quick-setting gel adhesive, such as Beacon 3-in-1 adhesive
Ornament string (or metallic embroidery floss)
Metallic pipe cleaner or mini tinsel garland
Small metallic bead

DIRECTIONS:

1. Download the star templates and print onto paper; cut out. Turn the template face down onto the back of a piece of glittered wrapping paper and trace around it with a dull pencil. Cut out the traced design.

2. Layer the printed template on top of the glittered cutout and use it as a guide to make all of the valley folds (folding inward) as marked by the heavier dashed lines. Once you've made the folds, you can use a bone folder to make sharper creases, if desired.

This is what your paper should look like after you've made all the valley folds.

3. Make the mountain folds (folding outward) as shown.

4. Fold the edges over as shown to form star points. Remove the template and sharpen any folds that may need it (fingertip or bone folder).

This what your star should look like after all the folds are made.

5. Turn the star over and glue the edges together as shown. This will give your star dimension.

Tip: You can adjust how shallow or deep you want your star to be simply by adjusting how you glue the back edges together. If one edge comes all the way over to the opposite edge, you'll have a sharp peak in the front of the star, which is better if you're not gluing anything to the center. If you're gluing an embellishment, you might be better off with the edges meeting somewhere near the middle. This is purely a personal preference.

6. Glue the glittered star to a piece of cardstock, leaving one of the tips unadhered (for ornament string placement) and trim the excess cardstock. Glue a loop of ornament string or metallic floss behind the unadhered tip, between the glittered paper and the cardstock. Glue the tip to the cardstock.

7. To embellish, make a small circle of metallic pipe cleaner or tinsel garland and glue it to the front of the star, then glue a bead in the middle.

Click here to get the star tag template and see how I used it as a gift topper (just fold the valley folds as mountain folds and the mountain folds as valley folds and don't glue the back edges together).

Resources:

Star Template from BHG (resize as desired, if you want larger stars)
All other supplies found at stores such as Michaels

See these links for other configurations and ideas:

Super Simple Paper Stars from Annekata

Several tutorials from How Did You Make This? - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3