Geometric Star (in which I realize just how spatially challenged I really am)

March 27, 2013 by Anne 9 Comments

It’s great to just be going along, living your life and stuff, but it stinks when, every once in a while, something comes out of nowhere and smacks you with reality. Like when you try to make a geometric star with straws and string.

This was one of those crafts that mommy bloggers say takes just one naptime, but I had to take like three naps during the process…not sure how they only got by with one. Katie Bower of Bower Power Blog was the inspiration for this sweet project…here‘s her version.

I began with 45 straws that I cut into 90 3″ pieces and a big ole’ bundle of string. Using a tricky little process of stringing the straws onto the string and some twists and knots, create 2 pentagon shapes and fill in the middle spokes. These two pentagons will be the top and bottom of the inner dome of the star. Connect the two pentagons by zig-zagging triangles between them.

This whole process to create the inner dome took me a good 5 or 6 tries. For some reason, I kept creating hexagons, which did not work at all. Pentagons are the way to go.

Mine looked a little weird by this point, but I kept going in the hopes that it would all be okay at the end…

Once you have your inner piece finished, all you have to do is add three-dimensional triangles to all of the dome’s triangles to make the points of the star.

Leave a string on it, hang it up, and cover it with a few thin and even coats of spray paint. I got some silver spray paint from the thrift store (where I get everything, these days…except food because that’d be gross) which made this thing look like metal.

Looks a little higher end than the straws and string that it is, huh? Kenny was impressed, which means this craft was a success. And let me end with a little bit of encouragement: if I can figure this thing out despite how spatially challenged I actually am, you can definitely do it.

Now I just have to figure out what else to do with my thrift store spray paint. Any ideas?

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