Star-Spangled Sun Catchers

With the July 4th holiday rapidly approaching, I thought it might be fun to craft our way to a more festive window display.

Our youngest son loves art and building. When I saw these stunning stars on The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art website, I knew we had to give it a try.

What You Need

Slim wooden craft sticks

Low-temp glue gun and low-temp glue (optional)

White school glue

Paintbrush (optional)

Tissue paper in assorted colors (we used red, white, and blue)

Scissors

Mono filament (aka fishing line) for hanging

How to Make Them

Arrange five sticks in a star formation, adding dots of glue at the points to connect. I applied the dots of glue with a low-temp glue gun and my son arranged the sticks. You can do this with white glue, but will need to allow for drying time before step two. Don't worry if your stars aren't perfect. The lopsided look adds to their whimsy!

When the sticks have been made into stars, apply white school glue to the sticks. Since I thought squeezing out a small amount might be asking too much from my six-year-old, I squirted it in a disposable cup and we brushed it on with paintbrushes.

Once covered in glue, we laid a piece of tissue paper over the star and pressed lightly to make sure it made contact with all the gluey sticks.

Once dried, I carefully cut around the edges of each star, poked a hole in the tissue and threaded mono filament through. I then hung the sun catchers in our window to enjoy.

My son got creative and made one GIANT star. Encourage your kids to play around with various shapes and layers of the colored tissue. A little glitter might create an extra fun spotted look too!