 My name is Miss Shayna and I'm a children's librarian here at the Long Beach Public Library. Today we're going to be learning how to make paper window stars. These are really fun to make. They cost very little and they're such a beautiful item to hang in your window during the summer to let the light shine through and brighten up your home. Speaking of summer, if you haven't signed up for the summer reading program yet, you've got to go to longbeach.beanstack.org to start earning prizes for all the reading that you're already doing this summer. And if you already are signed up, please make sure you get credit for joining us today by entering the code summer into your activities tab on your Beanstack account. Let's go ahead and get started. What you're going to need for this craft is tissue paper cut into six inch squares. I'm using kite paper, which is used to make paper kites. You can find this online in a nice little stack. It can be a little pricey though, so tissue paper gift wrap is a perfect substitute for it. The color just might not last as long when it's hanging in the window. But yes, I'm using kite paper. You can use whatever colors you like. And I'm going to be using colors that look like the sun for summertime. And you'll need two. So you'll need two squares that are six inches by six inches. Then you will need some tape, a glue stick, and some scissors. Let's go ahead and start. Okay, so first we're going to take one of your paper squares and we're going to fold our cutting lines onto this square. So first we're going to fold it in half once, then we're going to fold it in half this way. It looks like a square again. We're going to fold it in half one more time. So then we'll end up with eight individual rectangles that size. That was my other piece. Then we're going to fold it in half edge to edge corner to corner. Then we're going to fold it again left to right. Then we'll fold it again left to right one more time. That nice little rectangle just like that. And when you unfold it, you have all those different rectangles, but I think it's a little bit easier to cut it while it's folded. So go ahead and grab your scissors. Okay, we're going to start cutting on the folded lines. So I'll cut right along that fold. So you'll see now you have eight rectangles in each color. And now we're going to start folding these. And what you're actually going to be doing is making two stars and putting them together. So I'll start with this color first. And here's how we're going to fold this little rectangle. You're going to start by folding it in half long ways, edge to edge corner to corner. Give it a crease. Then go ahead and unfold it. So you can see that crease in the middle. We're going to be using that crease as our guideline. So next we're going to take the top left corner and we're going to fold that down. So I'm using this finger on this side to hold that half. And then I'm going to use my other hand to take this top edge and line it up with the crease. So that we get a nice little point there. And I'm going to do the same thing on the other side. I'm going to take the corner, fold it down and diagonally towards the crease till it lines up. And then I'll fold it down with my finger. Use your fingernail to get a sharp edge. And I'll do the same on the bottom. I'm going to take the bottom left corner and fold it up this time to your center crease. And the bottom right corner fold it up to your center crease so that you get this kind of diamond shape. And you're almost done. You need to do two more folds. We're going to go to the top here. We're going to take that left side and we're going to bring it down one more time to make an even narrower point on your star. So it's the left side. I'm going to do the same thing on the right side. I'm going to take this already folded edge and I'm going to fold it again to line up with that center crease once more. Try to get it as close as you can. And there you go. That is one complete portion of your window star. You don't have to tape or glue anything here unless you want to. But I find that you don't need to. So we're going to make 15 more of these points. There we have 16 points for our star. I want to separate them by color because we're actually going to be making two and then gluing them together. Okay. So we're going to take two points and make sure that the skinnier point is facing up and then we're going to be overlapping them and gluing them. So you want to make sure that this line here, this crease lines up with the center crease on this point. So I'm just going to overlap. I'm just going to lay it right on top of this one like that so that the points line up and the edges line up just like that. Okay. And then I can sort of see where I need to put glue. So I'm going to be putting glue in the area below my finger, but on this side of the crease, on the right side of the crease. So it's nice having this purple glue stick because you can see the glue before it dries. And you'll see that, you know, you don't want it to go on this side of the star. So a little bit of glue here on the right and then we're going to overlap this one just like that. And again, you're going to see the glue, which makes it look a little yucky right now, but once it's all dry, it'll be clear and won't notice it. So we're going to do that again eight times. I'm going to put a little bit of glue right here. I'm going to take my next point. I'm going to line it up just like, just keep overlapping it until you go all the way around your star. You don't need too much glue just a little bit. I like to take, since I want it to look the same, I take out this one from the bottom. So it overlaps this one. And I'm just going to put a little bit more glue on that last point and then put my first point over that one. So that's one completed star. Go ahead and do the next one. And that's it. Those are your two stars. Next, you will take one of your stars and overlap it over the other one. You can see which one you like best, but honestly, once they're up in your window and the light is shining through them, you won't really be able to tell which color is on top. Okay, so I'm going to line them up like this first. And then I'm just going to turn the one on top a couple of degrees there. And then I'm going to put some glue right here. I want it to be kind of where these points are in between the other points. And that is your complete window star. When the glue dries, it looks a little bit more like this. And next, you can put a little piece of tape. You probably want to use clear tape, not masking tape for this, but that's just what I had ready. And you're just going to fold a little piece of tape there. Put it on the back of your window star. And there you have it, your complete window star. Go find a window in your house that's facing the sun and just stick it right in there. And I hope it brightens your home and makes you a little more cheerful this summer. Again, don't forget to enter your code summer at Beanstack. And happy summer reading. Thanks for joining us today.