Foam Broadway Star Experiment 2

 Back in February, I was a Guest Post on the lovely claireabellemakes blog and this started a new obsession with foam, that led to this post and has, in turn, created todays post.  I am on a mission to experiment and try and find a way to recreate Broadway Lights without the electricity, wood, metal and power tools.  After creating a 3D star, my next test was to try and make a free standing star.

Here is how I got on.  P.S - If you like a broadway light too - here's a little Pinterest collection I put together :)

What I Used:

1 Sheet A4 Dark Brown Foam

1 Sheet A4 Light Brown Foam

A5 sheet Gold Glitter Foam

Glue Gun

Pencil / Craft Knife / Scissors

I largely used the same techniques as the previous Foam Star experiment, creating a light brown star using the original template.  I wanted to create the illusion similar to the wooden and metal broadway lights, having depth, shade and as the star would have the illusion of lights added a little later on, the lighter foam would help give the impression of a lit- up background:

..which was created by cutting several circles [using a nail varnish pot as my template] out of the star with a craft knife:

[I found the easiest and neatest method of cutting the circles from the star with the craft knife was to lightly cut the top half of the foam with small cuts, joining together to complete the circle and then that pre-made line can be used to help guide the craft knife through the entire depth of the foam].

...and using those cut out circles as templates on the back of some glitter foam [you can bring the scissors in for this part - a little easier and quicker]:

Next, to create the sides, I used a dark brown foam and measured a strip of 5cm in width, cutting to length with scissors and using the star template as my guide:

I fixed the sides in place one by one using my glue gun until I completed the star:

The edges where each side met were tricky to align without trimming at a 45 degree angle - for any future stars [and larger stars] I may take the angles of each point of the star in to more consideration to try and help overcome this - it was a little tricky and time consuming!

Finally, once the glue is dried, I neatened the sides up with scissors or a craft knife to remove any glue that had escaped through the joins and add the glitter circle 'lights':

Displayed with my original foam star and Decopatch '&', I'm starting to build up a little display and experimenting had taught me what works and what needs further practice!  

I'm tempted to double-up some of the foam for future projects to strengthen the sides or shapes and I'm moving on to creating 3D light bulbs - in geometric style, so hopefully it will be successful and posted up here soon.

see you next time x