112. Board Game Tokens

Just a quick one after the last remains of this year's last Christmas family gathering have been cleaned away. We sat down to play one of those really old board games ("Coppit"/"Fang den Hut") and I used the tokens afterwards to make a star:

Now, I think I'm going to sleep for some two days or so.^^

111. 3D Jigsaw Puzzle

During breakfast this morning I took the time to assemble a very neat three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle I got for Christmas:

I really like its amber colour and the structure inside which makes it look a bit like a crystal of some kind. When finished it's about 15 cm in diameter. These were the original 38 pieces:

110. Ice Lantern

A very happy and blessed Christmas!

 Let the light grow...

 And let some of the ice in the world melt...

Just not the polar ice caps, please!^^

109. Christmas Glitter Balls

Today we put up the Christmas tree. I took resposibility for the lights which took me quite a while and left me without much enthusiasm for further decoration. So I left that to my dad and sis. However, I nicked some of the leftover Christmas glitter balls to make a star (too full a day to somehow get creative and make another actually decorative star...):

The little man on the black one in the centre is a "Grubenmann" - some kind of mining associated logo for the Ruhr region where I come from originally. My mum got two of those this year and I really like them. They went onto the tree as well.^^

108. Paper Pop-Up Card

Here's a beautiful idea for a Christmas greeting card - and it's rather simple, too, once I managed to figure out which part has to fold where without making a complete mess of it:

107. Window Decoration Star #5

An emergency star because I had no time for any of the remaining Advent projects I had in mind - made in between packing and cleaning up out of some left over transparent paper that had to be either put away or put to some use:

106. (Un-)Folding Square/Star

Here's a beautiful little star that's not only nice for decoration purposes but can also easily be sent by post. Folded it looks like this:

Unfolded like this:

 Again, it's really simple to make:

Take a (rather small) square sheet of paper and fold it in half both ways:

Flip it over and fold it diagonally:

 

Make a small square by pushing the two ends of the diagonal toward each other and squashing the model flat on the two square sides:

Make six of those squares, glue them together on the flat sides (make sure the open corners all point in the same direction), attach ribbons to the two outer squares - and finished! :D

105. Straw Star

Back from a wonderful (early) Christmas party with friends before we all leave for our seperate hometowns. So, a late night post again:

Here's today's star - a rather lame excuse for a straw star I'm afraid... I was a little - no, make that far too ambitious with this one considering the rather small amount of time I have on my hands at the moment.

104. More Biscuits

I have just returned from a wonderful weekend with my sister and we spent a large protion of today baking - this time the very original traditional and simple Christmas biscuits made of shortcrust pastry we used to make as children. Here's a part of the result - not yet decorated as I had to catch my train:

103. More Origami Stars

Not much time today as my sister and I went to see several Christmas markets as well as a wonderful ballet perfromance of 'The Nutcracker and the Mouse King'. So here are too quick origami stars:

I think this is my favourite origami star so far.

Instructions can be found here.

102. Origami Star Box

A short one today as I was running out of time after several other failed attempts...: a quite simple origami box in the shape of a four-pointed star.

It's nice to be decorate with some fir branches and a candle, or it could be used for little Christmas presents, biscuits, choclates and the like.

I couldn't make it all from memory so I used this very easy to follow instructions on youtube.

101. Star-Shaped Table Lantern

Yet another table lantern that had me wondering for a long time how it was made. I looked for instructions yesterday, found them, and now here it is:

It turned out a little dark because I coloured the paper in (mostly blue) watercolours. I think oiled paper would be a good option here, too.

I used the (German) instructions from this website and since I was rather in a hurry didn't make any myself.

100. 100 Star Pictures

Well, what can I say... I've made it to day number o n e   h u n d r e d !

Ever since I began making stars, I also took pictures of all kinds of stars I simply found in all kinds of places. A few weeks ago, I wondered whether I might make it 100 photos until my 100th day of the project. And, yes, I did. So, here are 100 pictures of 100 stars from all over Germany, discovered while walking through streets, spending time with friends, browsing shops, tidying up, and staring at my cup of tea:

The only condition was that none of them should be connected to a star I had made myself for this project. It was a real challenge to put them all together - and not die of boredom in the meantime... (I do admit that I already began yesterday, assuming (correctly) that it might take a while to do this.) Surprisingly, I had no problems with the size - it all just fit.^^

P.S.: Only 40 of those stars are actually Christmas related. ;)

P.P.S.: I added a new page with my favourites (-> 'My High Lights') as even I start losing track of what I've made so far...^^

99. Hedgehog Star

OK, this star has nothing to do with a hedgehog, really, except that it's basically a ball of spikes - 64 of them, to be precise, which is a new record. :)

And again, it's rather simple to make once you know how:

You need:

8 round pieces of aliminium foil (the thick, coloured kind that's very popular around Christmas), 6 cm in diameter works fine

scissors

glue

needle & thread

Fold a circle in half (x 4) so you get four lines crossing in the middle. (The paper I used is two-coloured, so the star could have got red and gold spikes - but I was nostalgic and in my memory they are all red.)

Cut on the folded lines but not all the way to the middle (leave about 5 mm uncut). Then place a sharpened pencil in the middle of one of the cut pieces and wrap both corners around its top while slowly pulling the pencil back. Once you've done that with all 8 pieces the result should look something like this:

You can try to glue the eight former-cirlces-now-stars together - depending on the kind of paper it may or may not work... Finally, just pull a thread through the middle, bend the spikes a little to form a ball and - done!

98. Bascetta Star Construction

This is a Bascetta Star:

Yes, I have made one before. But this is a video of the star assembling itself:

I can't believe it actually worked! I've had this plan for a long time and finally got to try it. Marvellous! I am quite delighted. ;D

97. Rainbow Star

Alright, here's yesterday's star with the light shining through:

It's really simple to make. You just take long rectangular pieces of transparent paper and fold all corners toward the middle - several times. I did it twice on the inner and three times on the outer end. 16 of them make a whole circle if you glue them like this.

96. Origami Stars

I made some origami stars yesterday. But when I got home last night I fell into a fit of coughing that would last for about an hour with only minor interruptions. So, trying to take pictures of them and posting them was somehow not important to me. Here they are now:

P.S.: Today's star needs some daylight for a proper picture, so that's gonna come tomorrow.

95. Mechanical Puzzle Star

Woohoo! Here's wonderful achievement!

It has become a tradition that every year I buy some kind of mechanical puzzel at a Christmas market - mostly those to disassemble. So, while strolling around the Cirstmas market of my hometown with a friend yesterday, I discovered a puzzle which contained a star. (I admit, I had planned to buy one with a star this year.^^) 

Early this morning, after hours of sleep deprivation due to a nasty cough, I decided to give up trying to fall asleep and got up to get my puzzle. 20 minutes later I had figured it out (what a surprise! It made me feel so much better!) and now it looks like this:

So, my breathing may be badly affected by this cold, my brain, however, seems to work just fine - as yet. Good to know. :)

94. Table Lantern With Stars

Yay, finally a star I'm happy with again! I had often wondered how these round table lanterns are made that basically consist of lots of pantagons with five-pointes stars on them. Now I know:

It's such a beautiful effect and amazingly simple to make:

You need glue, a ruler, and 11 pentagon-shaped pieces of paper (mine had a side length of 5 cm which is the minimum if you want to put a candle inside):

Take one pentagon and mark the middle of each of the five sides, then fold the corners along the lines like this:

 

(Do the same with the other 10 pieces.)

Use one piece as bottom and glue a second one to it by alining the folds on one side and gluing the overlapping little triangles to the centerpiece of the other paper (one inside, one outside):

Continue until you have five pentagons around the bottom. Then glue those to each other using the triangles again:

 

Make a second row just like the first one with the remaining five pieces. The triangles still standing up at the top are then each glued to the insides of their own piece:

Light a tealight, place inside and enjoy! :)

93. Window Decoration Star #4

Having caught a cold (hopefully just that...), I feel too exhausted to try anything fancy. So, another window decoration star it is:

(Picture taken when all of a sudden the sun came out for about two minutes today.)