Star light, Star bright

I've always been cheap.  Like - really, REALLY cheap...but two weeks ago my job was eliminated and now I'm torturing my family with a new low.  I'm not just cheap. I'm a cheap-ass now.  Today's craftiness is brought to you by the woods, which is a 1/4 mile away, behind a church, because I didn't think the church would mind me going  in their woods and collecting dead twigs.  I might be wrong, but hey - better to ask for forgiveness than permission right?

I love to decorate with the outdoors.  I have stick and twigs all over the house, which will be convenient for when I can no longer pay the heating bill and need to start a fire on my kitchen's tile floor.

This project takes three different supplies:
       Scissors (or a knife or even your teeth, if they are strong enough)
       Twine (or yarn or whatever product you have at home to tie it together) I found twine at the dollar store              
                forever ago and its been waiting for a project like this
       Sticks (find them as straight as you can)

So this is what we're making:

  

Twig and twine stars!  And they are really easy to make, so no worries.  Just a rule of thumb for this project, the smaller you want your stars, the skinnier the sticks should be.

 Step 1: Break all your sticks into the same length.  You will need 5 pieces for each star.  The small stars are approximately 6-7" long.
Step 2: Tie two ends together, leaving enough room at the end so the sticks can be pulled apart a bit.  This starts the formation of the star and also keeps the twine in place.

Step 3: Add your next stick.  To keep the formation tight, one end of the stick should be on top tied together, and the other end should be on bottom tied together.

Step 4: Keep adding your sticks until all are tied together.  I left my first knot with extra twine so I could tie it on to something.  You can also just add twine after the star is made to hang it up.

That's it!  Four steps.  Awesome I know.  Now you can hand them anywhere!

A couple here:

 A few more there:

Normally, there's a giant painting above the couch that I made - very modern. (Doesn't fit in with Christmas.)  I took one of the sticks and tied some twine to it to hang it from the picture hooks, then hung the stars from that.  (I made those burlap stockings too!)

And then I made two really big stars to hand outside.  I don't like them there - it looks to cluttered, but they stay for now, because I wanted to write this blog.  I'll probably find a way to hook them to the garage, or just set one on the chair and bring the other inside to decorate with.  I'm also thinking about making some more small ones to decorate the tree with.  I'm enjoying a bare tree with just some ribbon and knitted 'popcorn' from my grandma for now. 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!