How To Make 3D Paper Stars

A few weeks ago, I posted a paper geometric heart tutorial and have fallen back in love with simple paper crafts.  The next shape that seemed obvious for me to become obsessed with was stars.  There are many a tutorial of this simple technique to transform a flat 2D star into a 3D embellishment, but here is my contribution.

What I Used:

Card

Pencil / Ruler / Scissors

Optional: template

For this DIY, I created myself a simple 5-point star at the size I wanted and used this to trace around on my coloured card [but any star printed from google/Word/Pages/cut from a magazine will work just as well:

Once you have traced around your template, cut your star and mark the center [note: this does not have to be exact at all.  As long as the mark is in the center vertically, it can be placed anywhere on the horizontal and will create multiple different effects - a tutorial soon on this!]:

Using your scissors, score lines from this marked center to each point of the star
[on a 5-point star this is 10 lines in total]:

Now, for the folding - starting from the top point and working our way anti-clockwise. The pattern is that each of the 5 point lines are folded towards you, each of the 5 shorter points away.
Fold along the top point line towards you:

...then to the line to the left, fold this away:

...with the line to the left [the second point], fold this towards you:

and the shorter line to the left, away:

...the next point [the third point], fold towards you:

...and to the next, away:

Continue this pattern for the next four folds [as you have made your way around the star, you will have noticed the 3D shaping take effect and each fold becoming easier] until your star is complete:

Gently press in the center to make the star edges sit flush with a flat surface and to change 

the height of the 3D effect:

Make as many stars, in as many different colours [or patterns] as you like:

..and use them to decorate and embellish - they make great gift tags, home decor and 3D art pieces:

I'm creating lists of other things I can create with these effects.  Let me know if there is
anything in particular you'd like to see, or anything you've tried already.
Letters and Numbers are already being made!

see you next time x

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