How to Make a Paper Star Ornament from Book Pages

There’s something so special about handmade Christmas ornaments. Not only are they fun to make, but you can save a lot of money by making your own decorations. These ones are especially budget-friendly since they’re made with old books from the thrift store! Today I’m sharing with you some beautiful little 8 pointed paper stars made out of book pages or vintage maps. These are just so pretty! If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to make a paper star out of book pages, this blog post is for you.

It’s been a while since I’ve done any more involved paper crafts, never mind origami. I used to LOVE origami when I was a child! These paper ornaments definitely brought me back. They were really fun DIY project and surprisingly relaxing to make. Origami is such a neat craft to try!

I used these directions for this origami modular roulette to make my origami paper stars. To make the large star, I tore out some pages from an old book and cut them down into a square (the squares were about 5″ wide). For the smaller star, I printed off a vintage map and cut that into squares that were about 3″ wide.

This blog post was originally published in November 2014 and has since been updated.

Watch my video tutorial to learn how to make a paper star from book pages

How to make a paper star

You will need:

• 8 book pages or 8 small vintage maps
• pair of scissors
• ruler (to create a straight edge, optional)
• twine (optional)

Start with a square piece of paper. I trimmed my book pages into squares that ended up being about 5 x 5″ squares, and my map pieces were about 3 x 3″ in size.

Fold the paper in half on the vertical diagonal axis. Crease and unfold.

From the top, fold both sides to the center crease and crease those folds.

From the bottom, fold both sides to the center crease and crease those folds.

Now, fold the top point down from the left side at a diagonal. Use the fold below as a guide. Crease and unfold.

Repeat this step, folding from the right side from the top.

Next, flip the paper over and fold the two diagonal creases you had just folded the other way.

Now, bring both the left and right sides up toward the center. You’ve completed one point of the paper star. Pinch the tips and crease the folds to make each section look finished.

Repeat the steps above seven more times until you have 8 finished star points.

To make the star, tuck each point into another point until you’ve attached all of the points together.

The short end of one section will tuck into the long end of a previous section. You can use glue to take the sections together, however I don’t usually find it’s necessary if your book pages have a bit of a rougher texture.

Once you’ve reached the last section, tuck the first section into the last section to finish your star shape.

To complete the ornaments, you can thread a piece of twine through the small hole in their centers and tie it into a knot to make a hanger loop.

These origami stars don’t often need twine, however, since you can easily tuck them into a Christmas tree as-is. These would look lovely on a vintage inspired Christmas tree, or as part of a Christmas garland for a party decoration.

Here’s how the book page paper stars look on my Christmas tree:

These also make beautiful Christmas present toppers:

I hope you enjoyed this paper star ornament tutorial, and have fun crafting!