Craft Decorations for
Every Season
By Ursula Stiller, Armin Täubner and Gudrun Thiele
Floris Books 2015
Paperback £14.99
ISBN 978 178250207-4
Star rating (!):****
Star quality! A jumbo compendium of folded paper stars –
paper manipulation heaven! You don’t have to be a papercraft geek to access and
appreciate the starry projects in this book – but if you are, there is plenty
to keep you enthralled here. The projects are graded according to difficulty
(star rating – natch– of one to three).
The makes are suitable as festive decorations year-round –
for parties (indoor or patio), weddings, Christmas, even home decor. Garland or
solo, paper stars are attention-grabbers.
The book is divided into sections according to traditional star type, and each section has
its own expert contributor. The star varieties are Aurelio Stars (3-D
interlocking modular triangles), Filino Stars, Froebel Stars* (woven paper
strips), Messina Stars (fan-style with individual folded units), Solino Stars
(papercut), and Venezia. I would have
liked a capsule history of each star style. No info is provided on their crafty
origins (I know that Froebel stars are the brainchild of 19th
century German educationalist Friedrich Froebel - Wiki him).
Each section begins with basic techniques for each star
style. Step-by-steps are given photographically or as line drawings (I did
think that the drawings for the complex Froebel star were a little confusing).
Following on from basic how-tos are projects of increasing difficulty level.
Variations in paper type and surface decoration provide the tweaks.
The projects are attractively photographed in suitably
cosmic settings to maximize the fun factor. Handy tips are interspersed –
example (spoiler alert) – tie the hanging thread around the centre of a spent matchstick
and insert into gap in star. (Wish I thought of that.)
Back-of-book is a template section. A few templates are same-size, but most
require enlargement.
Beautiful Paper Stars delivers on the title. It is a worthy addition to your papercraft library. There is much here I am keen to
explore.
Above is a link to another title by one of Beautiful Paper Stars' contributors. He's your go-to guy for Froebel Stars!
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