Twinkle Twinkle, Ephemera Star

This time of year, I can't seem to stop myself 

from creating new ornament designs. 

They flow through my brain much faster than my hands can create them. 

Last year while thrifting in December, I found a bag of paper-mache star ornaments, which had gold leaf and cheap gold cording for hanging. The instant I looked at them, I thought these would be great for decoupaging ephemera on. Well, December moved too quickly, and I never got around to it. Fortunately, while recently foraging through my Christmas boxes, I rediscovered them early enough to follow through with my plan. 

Inspired by this Steampunk tree I created a couple of years ago, 

here is my newest design......... 

I cut out individual pieces of dictionary paper the shape of each star point.

I felt it would be more visually interesting, as opposed to just using

one whole piece over the entire star. I cut these pieces for 1 side,

with extra width to fold over the sides of each point. I did that

so there wouldn't be any gold showing on the edges.

Then on the other side, I glued these diamond-shaped pieces,

covering up the edges I folded over from the other side.

Once the gluing was done, I coated both sides with wood glue.

Once that was dry, I sealed it with matte varnish, which would then dry

with subtle crackling, due to the wood glue beneath.

I then darkened all the edges and crevices with alcohol ink,

using both Adirondack and a Prismacolor pen. 

Inking up something with more than one color looks more aged,

since patina is often uneven on an old piece.

After I pulled out the gold cording, I replaced it with an eye pin 

(used in jewelry-making), 

securing it with super glue. I then attached beautiful 

textured gunmetal chain to the eye pin,

and tied the last link with jute twine for hanging on the tree.

The final touches to really make it twinkle, are silver glass glitter,

glued to all the peaks of each star point, and a smoky Topaz rhinestone

to the center. All these details were done on both sides,

so the ornament would look attractive all around,

whether hanging from a garland overhead, 

or hanging from a Noble tree branch,

where there's a lot of space in between.

Once the glass glitter tarnishes, it will coordinate beautifully 

with the gunmetal chain.

Despite the time-consuming nature of cutting and gluing so many little

pieces of paper, they were actually really enjoyable to create. 

I only wish I had more of these stars. I made a dozen, 

but I'm having trouble locating more of this star shape. 

All the paper-mache stars I've found are only

5 or 6 points, but I'm quite partial to 8-pointed stars.

Anyone know where I can find some?

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