The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Paper Star Lanterns

Besides my shoes, one of the other big crafty-projects for our wedding this summer is the decorations. We decided right away that our "theme" would be magic, seeing as we've been performing magic together for almost a decade (and that he proposed during one of our shows!). While it's really "us" ... magic isn't a common wedding (or even party) theme. So we're going to have to create much of what we envision from scratch.

Our wedding reception will be in a local community centre that is quite pretty even without decorations. While we'll leave much of it alone, my one concern was that the ceilings are high enough that the room might look empty without some decor. So we decided to try "lowering" the ceiling with some glowing paper star lanterns, creating a bit more atmosphere. Imagine...a sparkling, twinkle-light canopy of stars...inside, no less!

Paper Star Lanterns - the inspiration

Turns out, it's not all that easy to find paper star lanterns. Either they are "Christmas Only" items, the wrong colours or sizes, or totally overpriced. So my mom said "Why don't you see if you can find a template and try making them yourself?" BINGO!

A quick Google search produced this website: Homemade Gifts Made Easy which had not only instructions on how to make paper star lanterns, but also a template! I quickly printed it out and made a prototype. While not exceptionally easy, it was do-able. So I set out to find some bigger coloured paper, and to make my own.

I popped into Michaels (I can't believe the people there don't know me by name yet...I'm in there at least twice a week!) and headed to their scrapbooking section. Lucky for me, their paper was on sale...5 for a dollar! Since I needed 5 sheets per star, this was a perfect deal. I grabbed a bunch of paper, a star shaped hole punch, and was on my way. Altogether I spent less than $20 to get the paper and hole punch for my stars. Score!

From there, the first (and extremely time consuming step) was cutting out the templates and folding them. I am beyond lucky to have had MAJOR help with this step. (And by major help I mean someone else did all of it!) Laura - you are amazing. THANK YOU!!

Template and one of the cut/folded papers

Each template makes one "cone" for the star, so you can see how much precise cutting and folding each took...times 5 per star...times 15 stars. Wow. Again, thanks Laura :)

The next step was to add the star punches before it was all glued together. Since everything had fold lines already, it was easier to get the punch in there. Just fold, and punch 2 stars at a time. See?

Fold and punch...

...then open sesame!

Basically you just keep folding and punching until you've got enough holes to shine the light through. Then you glue the cone together. Here's what mine looked like at this stage. Not bad!

It turns out that punching stars in the paper and gluing single cones together is the easy part. It gets more complicated (and frustrating) from here.

Once you've got 5 of these cones made, you start gluing (or taping) them together. The little tabs on the edges of the paper help, but the process is still really awkward. I wound up using a glue/tape combo to keep it all together.

Two together...

...then four...

And finally, all five!

Getting the fifth cone on there is a giant pain in the butt. If anyone else has done these and has a tip for simplifying, I would be forever grateful!!

One of the main appeals of the star project was the idea of lighting them to create a really "magical" atmosphere for the reception. After puzzling over twinkle lights and how to manage cords, I stumbled upon a solution. Wandering through the wedding section at (where else?) Michaels, I found these teeny, battery operated LED lights! PERFECT! On the day of the wedding, we'll drop these into the centre of the stars as we suspend them from the ceiling, giving them a pretty glow.