Origami Stars

There is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

I had this little tutorial all made up about a month ago waiting for the right time this week to hit publish. And then the same tutorial (by someone else obviously) was promoted on the Cosmo Cricket blog just recently!! Never mind *LOL* Keep reading if you want to hear my version, or click here to read a different (probably better!) version.  

I want to show you how to make some cute little origami stars that make great embellishments on your scrapbook pages or cards. 

Start with a strip of patterned paper. Sorry - I don't exactly measure, but it's about 0.5 inch wide and needs to be about 8inches long. The measurements don't really matter. The thinner it is - the easier it is. And the longer it is just ensures you'll have enough to make your star. I start with a long length and then just cut off the excess when I've finished.

Bend it into a loop as shown in the photo above. My final star will have the white pattern showing, so just take note if your paper is double-sided like mine which way you need to bend it.

Slip the long end through the loop and tighten it all up.

It's essentially like tying a neat knot in a piece of paper :-)

Fold up the short end, and tuck it in. You can trim it if it's too long.

If you flip over your star it will look like this (above)

Now fold down the long end to align with the straight edge of the bottom of the star. The paper will literally guide itself into which angle it wants to fold - just follow it!!

Flip it over and fold it over a couple more times until you're satisfied with the bulk of your star.
Cut off any excess and tuck the loose end under one of the folds (just like at the beginning)

At this point you've simple made a fancy-looking pentagon. To make the star shape I use my thumb-nail to make a crease half way along each straight side.

With a bit of manipulating and pinching you should end up with your final star looking something like this. But don't worry if you don't get it the first time, it's a little fiddly and might take a bit of practice. I certainly had my fair share of duds!

 

Here's the final product on my scrapbook page. All I did was glue him on, and add a few friends :-) These are all papers from the Basic Grey Jovial collection, and I made this layout for my Guest Post on Shimelle's blog, so you'll have to go there to see it in full!

But here's another layout I made a little while ago for Handmade by Suzanne using some lovely My Mind's Eye So Sophie papers.

I tried making a few different size stars for this one, and certainly found that the smaller stars are much easier to make look nice in the end. The big ones tend to look a little boxy and messy. But maybe I didn't practice enough?!