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The Iron Craft challenge for this week was to craft something using paper, and I went through a lot of ideas before I came upon the plan to do some simple paper cutting.
I remembered from long ago that you could make one-cut paper stars with some fancy folding, so I set out to relearn how to do it.
Along the way I decided this would be a great use for some kid art you might not otherwise want to keep, and would make a fun decoration for the kids’ room, holiday decor and beyond.
What You’ll Need
- paper: you can use just about any kind and any shape you have on hand, though thinner paper is easier to fold, and there’s a fair amount of waste involved so bear that in mind when choosing (for the tutorial I used half of a standard-sized sheet of construction paper
- scissors
What You’ll Do
Fold the paper in half longwise if there is a long side.
Keep this fold in place, then fold in half in both directions and unfold those two folds.
Take the left-hand corner and, folding at the center fold, place it so the corner touches the horizontal center line. This is the hardest part.
Fold that edge over to the left until it lines up with the far left edge. Press these folds in well.
Take the right top corner to the left and fold so that the edge lines up with the edge you’ve already folded (here the picture shows what that looks like from the back).
Fold that edge back to the right so the edges all line up and you have a triangle shape at the top.
The instructions I learned from (which you can find at the Betsy Ross page at US History.org) advises folding the whole thing in half in both directions at this point to give some guidelines for cutting, because you would cut diagonally from the edge through the fold line and to the other edge.
These folds are hard to make in thick paper and you can really just eyeball a diagonal line, unless you want all your stars to come out the same size (they probably won’t anyway).
I cut out a couple of stars from a drawing the girl made, and a couple more from a painting. I’d love to do a bunch, sew them together and hang them in her room. They’d also be fun between sheets of contact paper to make a quick placemat for Flag Day or the Fourth of July.
This is also a fun project to let the kids try if they’re a little older. Can they cut a star in one cut? Show them how then see how they do.
Have you ever cut out stars like this before? Once you get the hang of it, it’s actually pretty easy!