wooden stick wall art

Yesterday, I was reading Real Living magazine, and got totally inspired by their Christmas wall art - snowflakes made from wooden sticks. I was so inspired, I rushed to my craft cupboard but found nary a paddlepop stick in sight. Trust me when I say I've had paddlepop sticks on hand for 12 years now, and only just recently turfed them, thinking my kids were well past paddlepop stick crafts.

Groan.

Anyhoo, I did find these flat wooden 'spoons' normally reserved for ice cream, so I played around with them a little and this is what I created. I love them so so much, I'm seriously thinking of making a million and 'wallpapering' one of our walls with them for all-year-round.

Here is how I did it. You will need:

Sticks of some kind, scissors, a hot glue gun, sheets of acetate (try Officeworks) and something round to trace around. A surface that simply can't be damaged by hot glue is also essential.

Start by laying out your sticks into a variety of patterns. Play around with this until you're happy with how it looks.

Take a round object that's big enough to fully incorporate all sticks. Depending on your pattern, you may need a smaller or larger item. Trace around it and cut out the circle.

Because my 'snowflake stars' all join in the centre, a smallish circle is enough. If you do something of totally different pattern, you'll need to cut your acetate shape accordingly. You really are, however, aiming to have as least acetate backing as possible, so the sticks look as though they're floating.

Dab the stick ends with glue then draw a circle of glue onto the acetate and press it down firmly. The clear acetate not only appears invisible, but its transparency means you can see where you're gluing. You will need to work quickly, before the glue dries, but do be gentle; you don't want the sticks to move.

If need be, lift the edges of the acetate and squirt glue under for added strength. If you have decided to layer some of the sticks in a second layer, complete your first layer then add the second layer one at a time, adding dabs of glue to the sticks and adjusting them before the glue dries.

Your shapes will be almost instantly ready to hang. I have just blu-tacked them to our wall but you could also hot glue a ribbon loop to the back and hang them just about anywhere. Smaller versions would look amazing on a Christmas tree.

Kids would LOVE this activity. Don't worry too much about any imperfections. Charm and beauty are so often found in imperfection.

Have fun! Would love to see your creations.