Bright
Published On: November 27, 2017

The sun is setting somewhere around 4pm.  All I can say is that my office windows face west, so at least I get the light as long as possible.  That helps…and filling those west-facing windows with these helps too!

I’ve chatted about them here before, and the fascination remains as strong as ever.

If you want to make some yourself, you need the magic paper.  It’s sort of like a cross between tracing paper and cellophane (it’s not like the colored tissue paper you wrap presents in).  You can find little squares of it here and big giant sheets of it here (as always, amazon links are affiliate links).  I use the small squares and the stars I make are somewhere between the size of a salad plate and a dinner plate (you use several sheets per star, so they get big).  If you used the big sheets, you’d end up with something that would fill a door!

There are some books with instructions here and here.  And there are some kits that come with instructions and a little bit of paper here and here (though you’re probably going to want more paper than those include if you decide you like it).  Full disclosure, those aren’t the books I have (mine are old and in German), but they seem to be very much the same as mine.  And there are a few online guides for some of the simple stars here and here and here (and some fancy ones here if you don’t mind it being in German…you really only need the pictures anyway).

You don’t need much in the way of tools…possibly something to cut the paper to size and something to hold your pieces together (so scissors or an x-acto knife and tape or a glue stick).  But if you get as unreasonably entertained by it as I am you will want a paper cutter (I like this one because it has replaceable blades) and a bone folder (it makes more of a difference than you’d think…it takes me about a third less time to make a star with one, my creases are neater, and my thumbnail doesn’t get sore).

A few supplies, a few hours of folding (put on a tv show, it’s meditative in much the same way knitting is), and you can fill your windows up and fight off winter gloom!

 

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