Scrapbook Paper Star Wreath

Before the 4th of July, I saw this adorable paper star wreath.  It was themed for Christmas, but I thought it would work great for the 4th of July.  Unfortunately I didn't have enough red, white, and blue scrapbook paper lying around to really give it a go.  I did, however, have some cute coordinating paper that I had had so long that I didn't even remember buying it, so I thought I'd give the whole 3-D star thing a whirl.

I found a picture of a simple star online and printed it out on card stock so that I could use it as a template.  I traced around the star on to the back of my scrapbook paper and cut the stars out with a scissors (If you have a cutting machine or die cutter, that might be a bit faster--but this worked fine).  

After the stars were cut out, I then begin the process of creating the dimensional folds. The inspiration wreath was created using a bone creasing tool--no need, you can just fold the star in half at each of its points. The photo below shows the first fold.

This photo shows the star folded along all of its points but before it's been creased.

I tried a couple of different methods for getting the star to pop up, but the easiest was to fold the star up along all of the folds you've just made (as seen in the photo below) and then gently push down on the center of the star until it looks right.

After I had several stars folded, I found a cardboard ring that I had cut out of an old box. (It was actually a leftover from my Plastic Easter Egg Wreath Project.) I then covered it with stars. Unlike in the inspiration wreath, I didn't have enough paper of the same color to overlap the stars, so I filled in the gaps with scraps. What I neglected to read from the inspirational tutorial was that the stars underneath should be a little smaller than the stars you cut and folded (because they are smaller once they've been creased and folded).

I found that using tacky glue made the paper wrinkle a bit (so mod podge may be a better choice), but it wasn't visible once it dried and the dimensional stars were added. I used hot glue to attach the 3-D stars, and I decorated the rest of the wreath (on the star points and in between) with tiny stars I made using two different sized star punches.

I didn't have a large ribbon of coordinating color, so to continue the theme of making due with what I had, I used a little white ribbon to hang it on the door. It wasn't quite what I had intended, but I learned a lot for when I make the true 4th of July themed version (I already picked up a few sheets of red, white, and blue paper at the last Michael's sale to make it).  At any rate, it turned out cute enough to hang on the door for a while, and was created almost entirely with stuff I had lying around the house--so it was a win-win.