Christmas Star

So having seen the tutorial for a Christmas Wreath made from a recycled book on the Counterfiet kit blog I got drawn in as one inevitably does to more and more youtube tutorials. This one was the inspiration for the star above.

The first problem was finding a donor book. I thumbed through my own book shelf but  couldn't bring myself to destroy any of the well thumbed books on there or strangely any of the books I have been given that I ought to have read but never have (and lets face it if they've been there a couple of years already I probably never will) So I went to my local charity shop browsed the shelves, bought a fishing book for son for Christmas and one for me, but again couldn't quite pick on a book to purchase to just rip up!

I asked the staff in the back if they had any books consigned to the skip outside and BINGO I was heading home with a delightful book "Literacy Learning and Teaching- Language as Social Practice in the Primary School" What I had in my hand was a book no one wanted to read any more. The outer cover promised "to give specific examples to equip children with the many forms of literacy they will need in a changing world," as I ripped it up I did not see even one chapter dealing with "Text Speak or Forum Abbreviations"  clearly this book was past it's sell by date therefore my destruction of it was validated.

A mere two hours later I had ripped and twirled the 264 pages of the said book and my kids had been press ganged into stapling the bottom of each one to preserve it's cone. Assistance from the husband and his glue gun resulted in several second degree burns to both our fingers and thumbs. (If you are going to try this at home, when your husband glues up the cone and passes it to you I suggest you look at said cone as you take it from him and not at where you (think you) are about to stick it. It just may be that the glue is exactly where you are about to place your thumb so the cone sticks firstly to your thumb, then your opposite hand and then your shorts...oww.


With bandaged extremities and strange looking coned shorts I completed the star with points made  from  cones stacked inside each other and secured with harmless tape on the back and added the baubles to the centre. Volia, as requested by church, a star to hang above the crib scene for the Christmas Day service and a new Christmas Decoration for our home thereafter. Apologies to school kids world wide who have missed out on the application of systematic function linguistics for the sake of something pretty!