How to make a Popsicle Stick Star

Time for some lovely handmade Christmas Ornaments. These are great as popsicle stick star ornaments during the Chritsmas period, but I think these stars are also fantastic as part of New Year’s Eve decorations or even in red, white and blue for the 4th July. But of course they are simply gorgeous as a festive Christmas Tree decoration.

How to make popsicle stick stars

Fun Holiday Decorations

Every Christmas Crafts for Kids session, NEEDS some homemade ornaments! They are such wonderful Christmas keepsake crafts and also make great gifts for family members. Though we chose to make our stars simple, you can go as crazy and decorative as you like – simply use a few simple materials or go crazy with the craft box. A fantastic opportunity to dig out some buttons, pom poms, sequins from your craft box. Or even have a go at yarn wrapping and turn these into yarn wrapped stars! Simply have fun making these holiday decorations.

We have a couple of GREAT variations on the craft stick stars coming soon! Keep your eyes peeled for those too!

We made a 5 pointed popsicle stick star ornament. You can of course also make a 6 pointed posicle star (in which case, you would make two triangles first). These would be gorgeous painted blue and white for the Star of David too – great for Hannukah Crafting.

Supplies needed per popsicle stick star ornament

• 5-6 popsicle sticks per star (we used our washed summer lolly sticks, making this a great recycled craft too.. though craft sticks from the store work too)
• Paint in desired colors – you CAN make these using good marker pens too, but we love the finished look of the paint. We used acrylic paints, as well as gloss enamels as those were the paints to hand
• PVA glue (white glue) or a hot glue gun (I find white glue better in this instance, as it gives you time to position the stick properly)
• A paint brush
• String or baker’s twine for hanging

PRO TIP: If you want to switch things up, you can use the same process with twigs or even cinnamon sticks! Instead of glue, tie each of the 5 points together with a little twine or string!

I have popped a worksheet printable (ad free!!) in my Teacher’s Pay Teacher’s store for a small fee. It includes an overview of the Santa Star, Nativity Star and Witch Ornaments too! Your purchase helps support the upkeep of this blog. THANK YOU!

How to make a craft stick star ornament

So we are making the Pentagram Star – which is a five point star. If you want to make a hexagram star (six point star or also known as a Star of David), make two sets of triangle shapes (using the process below) and then glue them on top of each other! I think both sets of popsicle stars look fabulous and both work well as Star Ornaments!

Prepare the craft sticks

You need to make craft stick stars in a certain order for all the popsicle sticks to “fit”. Ours are different sizes and sometimes different shape as we have washed and recycled all our ice lolly sticks from the summer. All our craft stick crafts this season, have been made using recycled popsicle sticks.. which has been a super fun way to craft with the kids. So it is worth to check these at the beginning!

You can use either marker pens or paints to color your popsicle sticks. Or you can leave them plain. OR you can paint them afterwards.. it really depends on the time and processes that suits you and your kids/ students the most. The “easiest” is to color them using felt tip pens as they dry quickly and you can carry on with the craft (or to leave them plain of course!).

Make your popsicle stick star (pentagram)

So as mentioned our popsicle stick star ornaments are five pointed stars, also known as pentagrams.

We found it useful to have a ready made one laid out to “copy”. If you haven’t made one already (why would you! Ha!). You can lay one out so you and the kids have one to “follow”. It just makes it a little easier!

Start by laying one craft stick down in a way that creates the “top point”. Add a blob of regular craft glue to the top of this craft stick and add a second stick pointing down. To make the beginning of a capital A shape!

Now add a blob of glue to the bottom of the second craft stick.

Lay a third popsicle stick on to that glue and make it point back up towards the top left hand side.

Add another bit of glue to the top of the third craft stick. Now add the fourth craft stick to go horizontally across.

For the last fifth craft, you will need to add to bits of glue – one to the fourth and one to the first craft sticks.

Place your final craft stick in place. As you have used PVA glue, your star is not yet “secure. We like to give it a bit of a wiggle to make sure we are happy with the final shape.

Note: the 5th and the 1st popsicle stick sometimes “lift” off each other whilst drying. So you may want to add a little more glue later and maybe way it down. Or secure it with hot glue if you need to!

Decorate your stars with buttons or pom poms

Now we decided to leave our craft sticks plain – well, plain wood, and painted yellow and red… but kids often enjoy adding bits and pieces from your craft box at this point. Preschoolers and toddlers especially love to add lots of embellishments. You can:

• Paint your stars or leave them plain

• add buttons
• add pom poms
• add sequins
• add glitter glue

• yarn wrapp your craft stick star
• add a photo to the back centre of the star

Lots of possibilities! We do in fact, have some ridiculously cute nativity stars and santa stars coming, so please do watch out for those or pop a search into the search bar to make them come up! Woohoo, such a fun way to customise your handmade ornaments.

Hanging your Christmas Star Ornament

Final step – time for hanging your popsicle stick ornaments in your tree branches.

There are two ways you can secure your ribbon or baker’s twine for hanging – either glue in place on the back or loop your baker’s twine! Both work really well. It really is a question of preference!

You may also like these popsicle stick Christmas ornaments this holiday season – our handprint angels and handprint reindeer.. SUCH cute keepsakes and super easy to make, even with toddlers! I hope these or the stars making into your Christmas activities!

Looking for more Handmade Christmas Ornament inspiration – we have lots of easy Christmas crafts for you to browse and check out! Or are you hear fro the Craft Stick Crafts? Either way.. we have you covered: