Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Make Your Own 3-D Stars

I'm pretty sure the trend of using 3 dimensional stars in home decor is on its way out. How do I know? I've figured out how to make them on my own which means - now that I can make an endless supply we'll find out that they are officially over.

But first, my apologies for being gone 10 days. In the past 10 days we've:
  • Been visited by 3 sets of grandparents, yes - for 1 day that they were all here at the same time. 
  • Had Bug's dance recital. 
  • Had one set of grandparents stay with us for those 10 days (don't worry, they were a huge help while here and I'll be showing off some of what we did while they were here soon.) 
  • Hosted Bug's birthday party, complete with grandparents, 20 kids and 10 adults. At. Our. House. 
  • Completed several projects
  • All while I continue to not only work full time, but put an additional 15-20 hours in on a freelance project.
At this point, I could sleep for a week!!!

But instead... I figured out how to turn a chubby little star like the one pictured on the left, into a dimensional star like the one picture on the right:



Really - this is so easy, it takes less than 5 minutes per star, and that is with a 3 year old trying to "help."

Materials:
  • Chubby Star (I'll explain)
  • Straight Edge
  • Something to score with, a actual scoring tool, or plastic knife will do fine


So first - a "chubby star" - what I mean by that is a star where the inside angle is not as tight into the center of the star as with a traditional star like you'd see on a flag.

See the difference:

With the star on the right, if you draw a straight line from tip to tip of the left and right points it goes through the inside angles of the star. With the star on the left, if you draw the same line, the line is below the inside angles of the star.

See - the star on the left is chubbier.

Ok - moving on with our chubby little stars.


Find the center of your star and lightly mark it in pencil - I marked mine a bit darker so you could see it:

Then on the right side of the paper, take your straight edge from each of the inside angles and score to the center of the star.


Again - I was worried this wouldn't show up well so I drew the lines in pencil here.


Then flip the star over and score from the tip of the star to the center of the star.

Next, fold all the long scores so they are up, and all the short score so they are down. As you are playing with the star you'll get what I'm talking about. Mine basically folded for me as I was holding it.

And there you go - Your own 3-D star...



7 comments:

  1. I don't think I could have ever figured that out! Nice work!

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  2. neato. now I know how to do it it really will go out of style. :)

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  3. Just a quick note to let you know that a link to this post will be placed on CraftCrave today [01 Jul 12:00pm GMT]. Thanks, Maria

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  4. Awesome! I've been wanting to learn how to do this. Thanks for making so easy!

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  5. That is awesome! I seriously am amazed! I definitely have to try this out now! Thanks for the tutorial. I'm now you're newest follower!

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  6. Would this work on something heavier? I really like the idea...

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  7. Hi! I'm visiting from Get Your Craft On. :) This is so clever! Thanks for sharing how to do it.

    Alison

    http://welcomesunshinehome.blogspot.com/

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