Kid Made Star Display Inspired by How to Catch a Star

We’re taking part in the 10 days of Kid Made Christmas over at Mama Miss, and this year our inspiration is all about children’s books. This is of course a topic that we love! Making crafts inspired by books is a great way to bring two of our favourite activities together, and for our project we decided to return to a book that we’ve covered here before with some other How to Catch a Star activities, and go for a How to Catch a Star inspired Christmas display.

I love how the star illustrations in this book are all very non-symmetrical, and even a little wonky (in a good way of course). This makes it perfect for a kid made decoration, since my kids free hand stars looks pretty similar to the quirky lopsided stars that you see in the book!

The idea that we used is super simple, so that young kids can make these with very minimal help. (My boys are 3, 4 and 6). Using cardboard tubes, paint, shiny card, a pencil, scissors and tape they made this star display.

How to make this How to Catch a Star display

1. Let the kids draw their own stars with pencil on the back of some shiny card (so that they can use this as a guide for cutting). If the stars are uneven or non symmetrical that is fine. We decided not to use templates so that we could get more of this free-hand look in the style of the book.

2. Carefully cut them out. Toddlers may need some help.

3. Cut your cardboard tubes into all different heights. We used kitchen rolls for this since they give more height, and chopped some to make the shorter ones, but you could use a mix of kitchen roll and toilet roll tubes, and posting tubes for even bigger ones!

You might want to paint your tubes first. We did this afterwards because we didn’t want to have to wait for them to dry in the middle, but that means you do need to be careful of the stars when painting. So decide whichever way is best!

4. Then, stick the stars on to the top of each tube. We used tape and stuck a piece going from the back of the star down into the inside of the tube. Bigger stars also needed a bit of double sided tape on the back of their lower point to stick more firmly to the front of the tube. You can also use glue if you prefer, but my kids love tape and I find it sticks things on more firmly unless you’re using hot glue.

Once all the stars were stuck down the boys had a little play with them and spent a few minutes arranging them into height order and building towers with them before we painted.

After painting, we left them to dry over night.

Then displayed them next to our fireplace.

The blue tubes are supposed to represent the sky, so the stars are being held up there in the sky! I think the end result came out pretty cute, and I love the personality of all their different stars, especially some that don’t even look that much like stars but that’s the beauty of kid made and free hand drawing by toddlers 😀

Even though How to Catch a Star is not strictly a Christmas book, with the star theme I felt like it worked perfectly, but you could still enjoy this craft all year round.

For another kids craft inspired by a children’s book for Christmas, check out our stocking craft for The Empty Stocking.

For more star activities:

Star garland (this one uses a template)
12 Star Crafts and Activities
Shiny Starry Night Mirror Painting
Star and Crescent Printing
Sponge Painting : Van Gogh Starry Night
How to Catch a Star Activities
How to Catch a Star Printable Activity Sheets

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In The Playroom

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Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
Her easy-to-follow craft ideas and practical parenting advice have transformed In The Playroom into a cherished resource for parents.