83. Little Paper Strip Stars

Okay, so today was the beginning of Advent season - and that means I'll be making Advent stars now. What I have in mind is mostly decoration (After many years I will finally have a properly decorated place during the time before Christmas) but there will probably be some others, too.

The stars I made this evening - while finally taking the time to just sit on the couch and watch quality TV - are an addition to yesterday's Advent wreath decoration:

 

They are extraordinarily simple to make, als you need is a strip of paper (mine were about 30 cm long and 1 cm wide), and possibly scissors but you can always rip the paper if needed.

Take the paper strip and make a knot on one end which you press flat:

Cut (or rip) off the short end, then start wrapping the long end around the pentagon shaped knot. It folds more or less automatically in the right direction. Keep wrapping until you have only a short end left:

 

Slide the end under the top layer of the wrapping:

 Cut off the end:

Now use your fingernails (I've tried: it does work with short ones as well ;)) to push dents into all five sides. Then you'll have the star. :)

P.S.: I call it 'Hoshi' which is simply the Japanese word for 'star', because the friend who taught me how to make it had learned this from some Japanese exchange students if I remember correctly.^^