Family Craft

I decided I’d do a family craft over Thanksgiving. I knew it would be a challenge, but I figured they could do it with some help. The kids would have to make many triangles… easy enough… and tie knots with thread… therein lay the challenge. My prediction was sooooo right. It MAY have been a bit much. Maybe I should have stuck with diamond dots or a jigsaw puzzle!

Enter the stellated icosahedron. I loved your guesses! Not a fossil. Not math. Those of you who guessed a star-something were correct. (Stella, Stella, Stella for star… name that movie…). A twenty pointed star.

This one is mine. It’s old and looking a little worse for wear. Made of plastic straws. I don’t even know if they sell those tiny ornaments anymore! Since most have fallen off, I should replace them with jingle bells. This Christmas decoration is meant to be hung… stick a bit of mistletoe in the interior ball or hang from your front entry. This is the smaller size, using half and quarter straws to build it… you could use half and full size to make it even bigger.

I know. You’re looking at it and thinking… “You had 6-12 year olds making THAT?” Sure did. Call it character building!
Step One: Put three quarter length straws on you needle and heavy thread. (Thicker thread would have been easier for tiny fingers…). Pull tight enough to make a triangle and tie a knot. Thread on two more quarter length straws and run your needle through an existing side of your triangle. Tie. By adding two small straws to the existing triangle, you will be forming another triangle. Tie. Every time you add straws, put them in position and TIE them. It is what gives strength to your star. Loose triangles make for a sad and floppy star.

Jaxon has his laid out.

It will look like the Chrysler logo. Or a stick man like Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man. When you add that last straw, it makes the center rise like a mountain top. We are making the interior 20 sided ball.
Confused yet?

The blue lines are what we just did. Now we will add the purple lines. It will definitely look like a five pointed star then. Once they’ve all been added and tied… we will add the orange lines. Obviously, since they’re not laying flat, it will pull the shape more into the ball shape we’re looking for. When you’ve added all the orange, to complete the ball you’ll add the same “Chrysler” shaped green pieces.

You can see Quinlan’s interior shape of his star. I’d add that if you have weak joints at this point, you could run a thread through all the straws to tighten things up.
At this point, you get to start adding points! I’ll cover that tomorrow!

Find me here!

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