Gothic Stars

These paper stars aren't exactly the stuff of nightmares. They are quite benign, one might even be forced to say pretty.  But with the right color choices they can make a nice accompaniment to your Creepmas décor.

I don't scrapbook, but a few years back I picked up a pack of paper on clearance after Halloween and it has served me well.  Here's what this sheet looked like to begin with. The black design has a raised velvet texture which I love.  The purple side is a little muted.  If I had a do over, I would spray that side with glitter to add a little more pizazz. 

My first couple of practice ones I used plain cardstock and they were too dull.  I coated them with spray adhesive and covered them with glitter. Then they were too pretty, so I used them on gift bags. I like to think they found more appreciative homes that way.
 
I was originally inspired by the tutorial on MoreStyleThanCash.com, but now I can't find it.  What made that one unique was each star used two different length strips.  Six were 7 inches long and six of them were 6 1/4 inches long.

It's a subtle variation. In the first picture above the top star is all  6 1/4 inch strips, the middle uses both sizes and the bottom one is all 7 inch strips. I know they all look the same, next time I'll vary the sizes a little more.

There is a good tutorial to follow at Homemade-Gifts-Made-Easy.com. The only thing I do differently is I don't bend the strips to find the center, I just measure and make a light tally mark.   I would add that Aleene's Fast Grab Tacky Glue works great for this. I probably mention this glue a lot, it's only because I really like it and it's what I use for most projects.  When gluing the loops together I pinch the ends for about 30 seconds and that's enough for it to hold together.

There are lots of little ways to change the look of the star.  You can used a spaced weave like I did or keep them close together.  The ends can be left sticking out or you can trim them to match the end of the loop.  I added a point to the ends. The length of the strips or the thickness of the strips can be varied. 1/8 of an inch makes a very delicate looking star.  I liked working with 1/4 inch strips best.

Here I've used a combination of strips that are 8 1/2 inches long and 3/4 inch wide and strips that are 7 inches long and 1/2 inch wide.  This time I used two sheets that were blank on one side, a thick glittery gold cardstock and a thinner black stripe sheet.  I used a permanent glue stick to adhere the sheets together but I still needed to re-glue a few spots during assembly. Maybe modge podge would work better? I don't know. 


Here's how it looks with the different sized strips.  Basically you alternate the strips and then do the opposite for the other cross. Having one of these self healing gridded cutting mats is awesome for making sure things are squared up. 





Glue the loops together and let dry.










Sandwich the two pieces on top of each other, with the loops facing inward.  Feeding the loose strips through the alternating loops.  Glue the ends.  If you'd like you can leave them, or trim them. 








I trimmed all but the bottom, I folded it over and glued a bent paperclip behind it for support.  I was going to use this for my ghillie suit tree costume and then I changed my mind. I'm fickle like that.

This tutorial from HouseRevials.Blogspot.com shows how to do a variation with double loops using a total of 20 strips.

This is how it looks with overlapping double loops. I love how snowflakey it looks.

(I found this on pinterest but it linked to a different tutorial.  I tried finding the original source for this picture but failed. Ange Lika is a very popular name, but I would like to thank the person that made this.)

Update: The link works now, so here is the original source with more photos.