You can spot them everywhere in the windows. And you can buy them in many stores. In hardware stores, decoration stores, furniture stores, and so on. Everywhere you can buy Christmas decorations, you can find them: glowing poinsettias.
There are a wide variety of materials, a wide variety of colours and patterns.
But why buy it when you can make your very own star as a Christmas decoration for your window? You know how quickly the Mr Beam lasers cardboard, and you don't need a lot of material. And you can quickly finish making your Christmas decorations for the window.
Material to make your shining star as a Christmas decoration for the window
You need photo cardboard, approximately 300 g/m2 thick, so that the star is stable enough.
At the same time, your cardboard should not be too strong so that you can easily bend and shape your star. Depending on how big you want your star to be as a Christmas decoration for the window, your photo cardboard arches must also be large.
If you use an A3 sheet of photo cardboard for each point of the star, your entire star as a Christmas decoration will ultimately have a diameter of approx. 55 cm.
In order to make a star for the window from the individual points, you will of course also need glue. And so that it shines beautifully, a string of lights is still missing. With a size of 55 cm, it should have at least 50 LEDs, or even better 100 LEDs.
A shining star as a Christmas decoration for the window from the Mr Beam Design store
First, you need the file for the star. You can find them in the Mr Beam Design Store.
It consists of a neutral point of the star and a point that I have already prepared for you with stars and dots.
Lasering your Christmas decorations for the window
For a whole star, you need a total of five points. Start your Mr Beam and open the Mr Beam software.
Download the file from the Theme Store to your Theme Library and then to your workspace. If you want to design the neutral star, you can do this with the pre-installed shapes in the Mr Beam software, or in your graphics program such as Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer or CorelDRAW. The size of the file is such that one point fits on DIN A3.
Of course, you can adapt the size to your needs or material.
When you click on the file in the workspace, arrows appear at the edge. If you click on one of the arrows in the corners, you can make the point larger or smaller. Then start the laser job.
You can find out the right laser settings for your photo cardboard through tests.
For my white photo cardboard with 300 g/m2, the settings for white paper with a thickness of 0.2 mm work quite well, although I reduced the speed to 1050 mm/min.
After lasering, take the parts of the star out of the Mr Beam for your Christmas decorations in the window and then finish making them.
Making the star as a Christmas decoration for the window
I had to help a little with removing the stars and circles. When everyone is out, the prongs are folded to one side along the dashed lines that serve as folding aids. Fold it into a pyramid.
Now apply glue to the longest adhesive tab and glue the first point together.
Now do this with all five and let the glue dry thoroughly.
When the glue is completely dry, lay the points of your star flat in front of you as a Christmas decoration for the window and apply glue to the two adhesive tabs facing you.
Now place all the parts exactly on top of each other and let the glue dry. To press the adhesive tabs together tightly until the glue dries, you can use paper clips or simply a heavy object such as a thick book that you place on top until the glue dries.
After the glue has completely dried, unfold your star very carefully.
Now comes the hardest part of making your Christmas decorations for the window
If you want to light up your star, think about how much space the cable needs and, if necessary, cut a small recess for it. Distribute the LEDs of your fairy lights fairly evenly across the five points of your star for the window, and lead the cable guide out of the opening.
Since it is made of white cardboard, the light inside reflects additionally, so that it shines beautifully brightly. Apply glue to the last adhesive tabs and carefully bring them together.
Make sure that they lie exactly on top of each other and that the cable is not stuck. Then you can replace the fairy lights if necessary.
Thanks to the sufficiently large stars, you can stick two fingers through them and hold the glued areas together until the glue dries. If it takes too long for you, you can also take one or two pieces of string, run them through opposite stars and hold the glued area together.
Once the glue has dried, you can hang your star in the window as a Christmas decoration. Depending on the situation, it simply hangs on the cable of the light chain. Otherwise, a string.
I wish you a lot of fun imitating it - and lots of joy with your self-made poinsettia.
Your Rina
