A star is born ... ...

Instead of buying a load of new christmas decorations this year we have been making our own, we have made them out of paper,pine cones,card and for the stars below wire and string, much more fun than fighting through shops looking for decorations that probably won't last half as long, it's good for the kids to do some christmas crafts as well.

Here's the stars -

They may not be to every one's taste.

The colour of the silver spray didn't really come out in the picture, they are easy enough to make, all you need is some wire (I used gardening wire) and some string, any string will do, or wool. You can also make them from string instead of wire, but it's a little harder to keep it altogether, you can spray them what ever colour you like, we used silver and some glitter spray, you can use gold as well.

Making them doesn't take long, although if you spray them you will need to wait a short while for the paint to dry. If you use wire you will need a jig (no fiddles involved) to make the basic star shape, unless of course you feel like making them free hand.

To make the jig you'll need some nails, a piece of wood, a hammer and a template, which you can either print out from your pc or draw on a bit of paper, then all you do is place the paper onto the wood and hammer nails into it at all the angles of your shape.

The jig with nails already hammered in - 

It should look something like this.

It makes it a lot easier to bend the wire into shape using a jig. Next take a piece of string and wind it round all the nails to make a star, basically you use the string to measure how much wire you will need, you want to leave a little extra wire so you can twist it together.

Using the string to measure - 

Measuring done.

Time to get some wire, you can see that I've used slightly more string than is needed, this will make it easier to fix the wire together. Next get your wire and use the string to measure out a length of it, then cut it (I should have mentioned that you may need wire cutters, or pliers) then all you need to do is wind the wire around the nails in the same way you did the string, thinner wire will bend easier, I got ours from the garden section at b&q.

Once that's done twist the wire together where the two ends join, again pliers will do the job, depending on how thick the wire is, then all that's left is to wind your string of choice around the wire frame, when you are happy with it, either tie the string to the frame and cut off any extra, or you can use a spot of glue to fix it. 

You don't have to spray them, you could use paints from a pot, get the kids to do it or you could just cover them in glue and glitter or anything else that you feel like really, it's up to you.

A close up - 

Still didn't manage to get the glitter to show, it's there I promise.

And that's it, they may not be flashy shiny plastic type shop bought ones, but to be honest I think they look better, and they'll last for a while, and even if you don't want to hang them on your tree if you got the kids to decorate them they will have had a great time, and that's what it's all about, and you don't have to make stars, why not try different shapes ? like snowmen or christmas trees ?

Thanks for reading.