German Star ~ Froebel Stern
Sunday, November 29, 2009 at 10:53AM 
Oh, how I love these!
Having grown up in Germany I have a weak spot for their crafts.. such as salt dough and their paper decorations. (I'll post how to make paper bells later)
I am not going to recreate the wheel though. I found a great site that has easy to follow directions for making the stars at craftideas.info. I copied and pasted the directions into a Word doc, reduced the image size slightly so I didn't use too much ink and printed them out. It is very nice to have them as reference for the first few stars you make. (I did finally memorize them)
Of course, I used antique sheet music, German no less.. the directions say you need 4 strips of paper, 1.5 cm by 50 cm. I found that if I took a sheet music book, laid it open and removed the pages from the center INTACT, that the side by sheets measured 46 cm and that was close enough. I taped the center fold as it was 100+ year old paper and I didn't want it to rip. The fold is perfect as you need to fold the strips in half anyway. Use a paper cutter! Your strips need to be quite exact, you don't want wonky edges..
I took a few photos of the progress and folding. When making the stars NOTE the direction of the diagonal folds. They are important later when trying to make the dimensional points... trust me, I found out after several stars and lots of struggling.
Another tip, shown below, be sure to tuck BOTH ends of the strips into the loops when you start. You'll understand once you get there..
Yep.. I learned that one the hard way too...
I strung a few on metallic thread and hung them from my mantel.. I like them simple this way but they would be fabulous dipped in a clear wax (helps preserve them) or sprayed with glue and dusted with glass glitter (something I avoid with wee children in the house). Antique them, tea stain them, add bells, make garlands, top gifts, who knows! No sheet music? use double sided gift wrap. (both sides of the paper will show). HERE are directions to make them into a wreath..
I just love them!
xoxo~
Abbie
crafts, hints and tips, holidays 
Reader Comments (21)
Wonderful! Thanks for sharing the detail photos....and I must say I never made them before. Smiles, Anke ;)
oh my I love these! I have some old sheet music and now I know what to do with it! Thanks for the idea :)
Oh my! These are cool! i don't think I have the patience to do many though! I like the music sheets for them!
Hugs, Lisa
Gorgeous! I have got to try my hand at this!!! TFS!
These are wonderful, thanks so much! For lots of holiday projects take a look at http://www.creativejewishmom.com
all the best!
I love making these too. My Danish Grandmother always had the tree full of them.
So lovely made with sheet music! I have a post planned about these same stars for later in the week and will link to yours. Am enjoying your blog and glad I saw the link to it via Craftig.
i've admired these for years but never got around to trying them because the instructions look so crazy :) yours turned out lovely! maybe i'll try to tackle them before the new year.
they are so pretty! thanks for sharing the how-to.
I learned to make these many years ago but have never thought of using sheet music. I love this look and will have to give it a try!
How beautiful!
I love the antique music sheet for your German Stars. Thanks for sharing your pictures.
I love that you showed how to make these. I remember making these once years ago and it would be fun to try them again! your blog is great!
Hi, I must be a bit thick ...that isnt very many instructions to follow It might be better if there was plain paper in different colours. Are there any other sights to go to. Thanks Jenny.
Hi, as you may already noticed I'm fresh here.
I will be glad to receive some help at the beginning.
Thanks in advance and good luck! :)
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