STAR MAKERS The next time you find yourself charged with tending small children or, at least keeping them from getting into trouble try showing them how much fun they can have making stars!
It will take you just minutes to show them how they can make neat, five-pointed stars with just one small, straight clip of a properly folded piece of paper!
Get some sheets of paper. Any size will do; more-or-less square. The bigger the paper; the larger the star. Pages of a discarded magazine will do fine. Don't start sneaking pages from the printer tray because kids or adults tend to go into wholesale production once they find out how – with just one scissors clip - they can make bright shimmering stars!
Start your demonstration star by selecting one sheet of paper. You are going to fold it upon itself one, two, three times. The first fold in simply. Crease the fold flat. Keep the open edge facing on you any flat surface. Next, take the “A” or upper left of the corner of the folded sheet. Think of it in this way: you are picking up the Puget Sound, WA. area and placing it at a point half-an-inch back from the edge of the Atlantic Ocean – about the west end of Hampton Roads or even Richmond, VA.
Place the Point “A”; just half an inch back from the Atlantic ocean midway - at about Hampton Roads, Va. and back from the ocean edge by half an inch or so. Crease flat. Fold the same portion back upon itself twice, crease down and you are ready to cut your five-pointed star!
Just one snip it all it takes. You have as tight triangle in hand with two single page flaps hanging below. Start to cut at the lower left corner of the triangle and aim at about one-third of the distance down from the top of the triangle on the left side. You might think of cutting yourself a medium slice of pie. The fatter you cut it, the wider the points of will be on your finished star. Clip to the edge and unfold your new star!
Kid stuff. Think otherwise. Dedicated star makers have some historic lore they pass around which insists that George Washington, at one time,insisted on six-pointed stars for the new national flag. Betsy Ross is said to have quickly folded a scrap of cloth and, with a single clip, scissored a modern five-pointer. He admired her digital dexterity and it won him over.
A.L.M. December 12, 2005 [c483wds]
