Tuesday's Tips & Techniques: Embellished Star

 Would you believe this star began life as a Christmas Tree topper? I picked it up at Joann's, with my coupon.  It is heavy, waaaay too heavy for any tree that fits in my house so I redesigned it into a lovely kitchen decoration. I used a variety of Cookbookin' papers and embellies and just in case you'd like one too, here is how I did it!

Those of you who know me, know I really have an aversion to measuring. Do I even own a ruler? Well, I do but it's lost somewhere in the junk drawer. {No, not really.} If you are one of those amazing measuring people. Simply measure each side of your star's arm areas -the places you want to cover with paper. I looked for my ruler, just for you measurers but I couldn't find it -looks like it really IS lost.

This was one of those "having 5 kids is really convenient" times, I just went to one of their bedrooms and snagged a ruler from one of them! My star's arms measure: 5x2-1/4x3-1/2inches. Cut your papers just inside those measurements or make yourself a template to use for cutting the papers.

OR

MAKE A ~no measure ~ TEMPLATE like me!

Push one flimsy piece of scrap paper over the area you want to make a template for. Technical, I know!

Ah, see, there is the lovely impression.

 Cut out the template of the template;)

And check real quick just to be sure it fits right, trim until it does.

 

Then cut out a real template from scrap chipboard, cardboard, whatever you have around that is a little sturdier than cardstock.

There it is, THE TEMPLATE. {Keep this around in case you get another of the same kind of star...I embellished one of these exact same stars a few weeks ago but somehow lost my template}

Now, choose some papers and cut away. I used some of my favorite Cookbookin' papers: Cookin' up Memories and Preserving Memories, for mine. They just go perfectly in my kitchen!

I like to stick my papers right onto my star with vellum adhesive (or any low tack adhesive) so I can really see how they look. Some of these papers ended up on the cutting room floor...

I stood it up to take a look and make sure I liked how I had it. I like to use a 4-3-3 paper technique on these stars. 4 of one paper, 3 of another paper and 3 of a third paper. I played with several papers for this one and kept dragging the entire project to my kitchen to see how it was going to look...Finally, I made my paper decisions.

 I always ink my edges on a project like this so one by one, I pulled the papers off, inked them and then replaced them so I wouldn't forget the order that I liked them in!

Finally, ready to permanently adhere the papers to my star. I use Mod Podge, but only on the back of the papers. Just personal preference. I'll probably be sorry when I splatter the star with pasta sauce one day.

I hung a nice little metal rimmed tag, also from Cookbookin', around the star. Gives it a nice feel, don't you think?

And now it happily resides on my kitchen countertop alongside some of my other Cookbookin' creations.