Byopia Press Advent Calendar 2020: Day Eleven and the Third Iteration of some Gift Stars

I first posted the pattern for these stars on the first anniversary of this blog.

The second version was posted as part of the first Byopia Press Advent Calendar in 2017.

It seems like a good year to create a third version. This one is simpler to make —all the cut and fold lines are on every copy— and it is just an ornament. (If you want to make the little book version, click on the first link above. For the gift tag version, click on the second link.)

Print out Star Gift 2020. I printed mine on four colours of card stock, but you can use a heavy paper as well, at least 90gsm/24# bond.

Score the fold (fine dotted) lines before cutting. You can also cut the short slots before cutting out the strips. It is easier to keep the slots parallel when you can align your ruler with seven of them across the page. If you printed on a heavy paper or on card stock, you may want to make a second cut to widen each slit slightly. This makes it easier to interlock the strip where it crosses itself.

Cut out your strip. If you didn’t pre-cut your slots, you should cut them now, then valley fold all the scored lines. (There are dots on the ends of each strip that don’t appear in the image above. It only occurred to me —after printing pages and taking pictures— that you might want to hang a star or make a garland. If you wish to hang stars or make a string of them, pierce holes at the black dots to make threading easier after they are assembled.)

Here are the assembly instructions from Monica Morelli. (The blog post from which they were saved no longer exists.)

Follow Monica’s step by step instructions to assemble your star. I found it was easiest to to align the slots but only push them down a short way. After everything was in position,  I pushed the strip all the way into place.

Here’s a sample made with single-cut slits.

If you only have white paper or card stock, the blank side of your printed page can be decorated. The sample below was scribbled on with felt pens.

Here’s a star from that sheet.

You can also make this star out of last year’s Christmas cards. (Doesn’t everyone save their old Christmas cards to make into gift tags?!)

I used the colourful end of a snowman design and cut five individual strips based on the printed pattern. (I divided the sections at the dotted fold line.) The card was quite thick, so cutting a wider slit was definitely necessary.