I made some Waldorf-style window stars to decorate our big living room windows. I like to put them up in the winter, to liven up the wintry view. They are a bit fiddly, but satisfying to crank out, not unlike cut paper snowflakes. The best paper to use is square kite paper (ETA- it's 6 1/4" square.) I bought mine at a Waldorf school store, but you could get some from Nova Natural. It's really much better to use instead of tissue paper, it's more sturdy and easier to fold. There are good directions in several books, I use The Children's Year and All Year Round. If you like the simple design I am showing, you can look in these books for more complicated designs. Here are some of the stars I made.

Actually, my son Julian, who is 7, made the green one, I was pleasently suprised he stuck with all the steps! So to start, you need to gather the kite paper, white glue, a couple toothpicks, a sharp paring knife or pair of scissors and a plain piece of white paper.

Use the white paper as a work surface, it's easier to see what you are doing. Choose a piece of kite paper. I like blue best, so that color is all used up in my book of paper!

Then fold it in half and crease well. Use the paring knife to cut the fold.

Then fold the pieces each in half crosswise and cut. This will make four squares. Fold each of those squares in half lengthwise and cut again. You will have eight small rectangles. Fold each of those in half and crease with your thumbnail but don't cut.

Next, open them out so you have a rectangle with a crease running down the center.

See my not-quite tidy edge? Try to avoid that, but don't sweat it if it happens on a few. Now fold both ends so the corners meet the middle crease.

Now on one end only, fold in the sides to meet at the middle. Here is what that looks like.

So after you've done that with all eight pieces, you will have this:

Now put a small glob of glue on the corner of your white paper. Pick up a tiny bit of glue with the toothpick and apply glue to one of the folded pieces. See the photo below for placement.

Lay another piece on top of this, lining up the side edge of the point of the second one with the middle crease of the first one. See how I needed to move the top piece down a bit to line up just so?

Continue gluing and laying out the pieces...

For the last piece, you add glue in the same way, but you have to lift up the first piece and slide in the last piece under the first one and on top of the glued one.

That's it! I like to press them in a book for a few hours, and sometimes you need to add glue to a few edges that don't stay put. You can thread them with a string to hang, but I usually just put the tiniest dab of glue in the center of the star and stick it on the window. I like to make rainbow stars, and since that uses 8 different sheets of paper, I decided to make some to send to friends. I set them on the window ledge for a photo before I sent them on their way.

I hope this is a useful tutorial, please let me know if you have any questions. Happy star-making!