Twinkle, Twinkle

Well not exactly twinkle, twinkle. More like lots of twine, some hot glue and wood shims. By the way, this is the first official craft to come out of The Craft Shed and featured here on the page. Yay!
If you have been on Pintrest lately, you will have seen this craft floating around on the boards there. I'm talking about the Twine Star Decoration that is linked to the Lowe's website which shows you the basic steps in creating the star. When I looked through the instructions, it seemed pretty straight forward. Then I read over some of the comments and took in the ideas and tricks the comments mentioned and applied them to my own progress in creating this craft.
For this decoration you will need:

Wood Shims, 10 (length is up to you, but I cut mine so they were 7 1/2 in long each)
Hot glue gun ( I used my low temp one as I figured on getting the glue on fingers as I worked)
Jute Twine ( I ended up using 3 rolls, plus a little extra from a 4th roll)
Optional:
Flowers, wheat heads, lights, bows, raffia

Check out the directions from the Lowe's website here
It says to glue as you go but I found that if I left a trail of glue on the edges of the shims, the twine stayed in place better, allowing me to glue less often. By adding the glue to the edges, it gave the twine something to grip and not slide around because as you will find out, it will slide due to the odd angles of the star. Follow the instructions on the website and it should be pretty self explanatory as this is a beginner craft project but be prepared to spend 2 or 3 hrs wrapping the twine. For me, I found that I didn't get into a technique until I was almost done with the project.

One tip I decided to use was the bracing in the middle of the star to support the overall structure to keep it from bending and twisting under the weight of the twine. I just took 2 of my shims and glued them length wise  from one end to the other for support. If you want a perfect, symmetrical star, measure out your shims so that angles are equal. I opted for a slightly off, kilter shape for my star, with some of the arms being a bit wonky in their size and shape. I weighted down the shims after I glued them with jars and cans as per the website instructions, giving it a full day to cure before starting in with the twine.

Shims glued together

Support pieces glued in place for extra support and area to glue to

One comment mentions cutting out a template in the shape of the star you want and glue the shims to that but  didn't want to mess with having to do the extra gluing that would have involved.  I just glued as I went when I thought necessary for the twine to stay put and not loose tension and slip off.

Silk flower cluster & wheat heads add some rustic charm to  the star

Finally I decided to add a bit of flair to my star by adding in a silk hydrangea cluster, with some sparkly jewels wrapped around in it, to the corner of the star and 3 heads of wheat to add some rustic charm to the whole decoration.

Finished and hanging on my wall in the dining room