328. Gross Grey Papier-Mâché Star

Finally, my papier-mâché experiment! For weeks (if not months) I collected all the newpapers to get enough for some sculpturing - having no idea how much I actually needed and thus ending up with WAY(!!!) too much... But now it has fulfilled its purpose. (At least I hope so: I'll have to wait a few days for all the stuff to dry before I'll know how well this worked out...)

Among other things, I tried to make a star-shaped bowl (or at least a base for one):

I'll probably get back to it in a week or so.

327. Moneygami Star #4

Nope, I'm not ashamed of using the same technique yet again - I'm having too much fun with it.^^

This is one of the most beautiful moneygami stars I found:

 side 1

side 2

Well, there are other really beautiful designs using eight or even twelve notes, but I don't have that much money just lying around... I live in the wrong country for that kind of thing...

P.S.: I was lucky enough to find instructions for both stars on the same website:
Star 326
Star 327

326. Moneygami Star #3

I kind of paused yesterday. So I made two stars today - which turned out to be fairly simple as I discovered so many instructions on how to make stars out of dollar bills and finally went through the trouble to find out whether they would work for five euro notes as well (seeing that I have collected some of them again).

This one is made from a single note:

 side 1

 

side 2

(I just had to use a flash for the second picture to bring out the sparkle of that holographic security band. :D)

325. Star-Making in Reverse

Sometimes in life I seem to be running against a wall and I try everything to get through but I can't. Today, I stopped the fruitless efforts and changed into reverse. So, here is the making of a star in reverse:

324. Little Green Paper Star

Yes, I have made these before. This is an emergency star, made last week and dedicated to 'CampusCouch':

323. 'Nut Star' Tea

This is some creative problem solving: I made some tea, and that tea was called 'Nuss Stern' (nut star), so in a way, I made a star...

322. Sourdough Bread Star

Okay, after so many late stars and catching up, this one was actually made early - meaning: yesterday. But it was such a great opportunity I couldn't let it pass:

This bread did not only get a star for decoration, it actually became my star of self-made bread so far: My very first real sourdough bread (I cultivated my own little sourdough starter baby :D) and it turned out fantastic!

321. Bell Pepper Star

Today was easy: When making my salad for lunch today, the bell pepper strips almost automatically formed a star - I helped only a little:

320. Name Star

Oops, I forgot my star again... Looks like there was too much else to think about yesterday. So I'm playing another game of catching up...

Since yesterday was my name day, I thought I'd keep it simple and appropriate:

Here's to you, Maria Magdalena!

319. Star Crackers

I made cheese crackers for a party tonight and just before I had them all cut out I remembered my star-shaped biscuit cutters... whew! Star done for today!

318. Moneygami Star #2

Good thing you only need two identical euro notes for this:

317. Quill and Ink Star

I dug out my self-carved quill again today for various reasons - one of them being another little star:

316. Star-Patched Jeans

One of my old pairs of jeans acutally had a hole in one knee. (I think, the last time that happened was sometime in primary school...) One evening, an idea struck me and I dug out a star I hade made a couple of weeks ago - from my old shoes... - and decided to use it as patch for the hole.

It took another week or so to finally sit down and start sewing. But by then it was already quite late, I got tired, and so it tool another two days to finally finish it:

Well, the star I actually made is rather uneven and looks like this:

315. Bought Sun on a Bag

Alright, this is quite a big compromise: While this star is handmade, I didn't make it. I just bought the bag it was stiched on. (One I've had my eye on for months, actually.) Furthermore, this is definitely a sun - and while the sun is definitely a star as well, it is still a somewhat different concept. But I'll just accept it. End of story.

Plus: It's purple.

314. Flying Seed Star

Surprisingly, I found some flying seeds on my floor. I don't think they ever reached my appartment before. Turning those delicate little things into a star turned out to be rather difficult.

I haven't figured out yet, which plant they came from. It all seems rather unlikely...

313. Newspaper Star-Collage

Actually, I had wanted to make a papier-mâché star - one of the very old ideas. I had collected lot of newspapers over the past weeks for this purpose. But then it seemd so much effort... For now, I used some of the newspaper to just cut out some star shapes and rearrange them in a most simple collage:

312. Marbled Candle Stars

Today, two of my friends came by and we marbleised some candles. ('Some' here meaning 'rather a lot'.)

I put some star-shaped stickers on two of mine before dumping them into the coloured water:

The only two clear results.

 
Some of the stickers also looked quite interesting afterwards:

 

And - just because it looked so hilarious - this is how we dried the long, thin candles:

311. Blood Star

Yesterday, I spent a wonderful night with friends watching a stage adaption of Mary Shelly's 'Frankenstein'. I had read the book only a few weeks ago and was amazed by how different by how still very appropriate this play was. As there was quite a bit of blood involved (though far less than I had feared when reading the anouncement for the play), I remembered the idea of painting a star with blood... 

Well, as I'm too chicken to deliberately harm any part of my body enough so that it would bleed properly, this became a very small star. But, anyway, I can now officially say that I gave my blood for this project:

 

... using a needle and (eventually, after various tries) my right hand pinky finger.

The longer I look at this, the more I like the way it looks... :)

310. Gold Foil Scratching

I'm still not enough of a coffee drinker to make a coffee machine and fresh coffee worth buying... So I bought another glass of instant coffee - and scratched a star into the gold foil before opening it:

309. Fingerprint Star

Today, I attended my very last official university class. (I almost wouldn't have noticed had a friend not pointed it out...) I felt I should honour the occasion with a star - the typical 'ink-on-squared-paper-seminar-doodle' star, except this one is not really typical since I doodled with my fingers, mostly:

large blobs: forefinger

small blobs: my pinky and a friend's forefinger (Thanks, Judith, for lending me a hand! ;D)
little dashes: thumbnail edge

308. Starry Purple Boost

Sha-la-la-la-late... again... oh, well. That's life.

I feel like I have neglected the colour purple a little, lately. So here's a little booster:

 (made with that stupid phone app again...)

307. Watermelon Star

A little while ago, my friend Xin sent me a picture of a watermelon carving she had found on the web, suggesting I might make a star like that. So, here it is:

306. Long-Term Shopping Star

Every now and then I update my longtime shopping list of things I need but not right now, so I should by them if I come across a good offer somewhere.

Interesting side note: I just realised my shopping lists are apparently back to German. There was a time I seemed to write most of them automatically in English...

Another side note: Who would have thought there has never been an eighteen-pointed star in this project? :D

305. Wedding Wish with Stars

Two of my friends got married, and among the many greeting cards, fun notes, artsy guestbook entries and the likes I wrote that night, I managed to include some stars into one of them:

(This paper was then used to wrap some candy, by the way... :D)

304. Lavender Star

I wanted to make lavender tea but forgot about it. I was about to go to bed when I discovered the lavender I had plucked hours before - and was grateful for this opportunity for a micro star:

303. Cleaning Beads Star

Okay, I have neglected my star posts for a while...

This star was also a late one: made for the 5th but on the 8th... idea provided by my dad on the 6th.

My mother had these metal cleaning beads in a sieve to dry. Originally, I wanted to form them into a large star, which didn't work at all. So I placed a few of them in a second layer on top of the others - and then found it extraordinarily difficult to capture it on a photo. The star kept disappearing as soon as the camera focused.

It worked eventually with the right angle, from a greater distance, and with the pearls taken slightly out of the focus of the camera:

Still, upon zooming in the star becomes more difficult to recognise:

302. Birthday Greeting with Star

I seized the opportunity to draw a little star when my dad asked me to decorate an envelope for a birthday present for my cousin's daughter:

301. Glowing Charcoal Star

Okay, this star was actually two days late (but I dated it back because of other stars having been made since, so that would be confusing, and the original photo being taken on the 3rd, so that's correct).

That night, I had a wonderful barbecue party with some friends and I took a very blurry picture of the last remains of glowing charcoal in the grill. I somehow liked the look of it so I incorporated it into a star:

Quite simple - again - but this time I'm actually happy with the result. :)

300. Hidden Star Puzzle

Oh well, here's number 300 - who would have thought? Nothing special today, though, I'm in one hell of a hurry. So, fortunately, I already discovered this puzzle yesterday and only had to outline the star that can be found in here:

(Scroll down for solution.)






























SPOILER

299. Little Jigsaw Puzzle Star

Yay, I got lucky! No need to ponder over which star to make today: I found a little puzzle in a book yesterday and now set to solving it - which fortunately didn't take long enough to frustrate me.

These pieces are to be arranged to form a five-pointed star - all have to be used and none may overlap:

 

Scroll down for the solution...



























SPOILER:

I know, I didn't do a very good job tracing and cutting out the pieces... But it's enough for this to work.