A Christmas Star

I love this time of year. I tend to get 40 amazing ideas for decorations and traditions and I manage to pull off 2. I am glad we did this one. It went fast and the kids even helped hammer in the staples.

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Supply List

• 5 cedar fence boards: actual dimensions: 6' long x 5 1/2" wide x 1/2" thick
• 20 exterior wood screws 1" long
• 11 cable/plastic staples 1/2"
• 3 strands of lights 24.5' long each (I used C6 size with 50 lights per strand)

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Lay out the boards.
Grab your fence boards and lay them out on the ground. Keep adjusting them until you have a star that looks as symmetrical as you want. Don't worry about which boards are on top and which are on bottom. The boards are pretty thin and long so they will flex for you. It didn't hurt that mine have been soaking in the rain for the last several months.

Screw the boards together.
Use two screws at each point and two screws at each cross section. Make sure that you don't have screw tips poking out the back side to get hurt on. I used screws that were exactly the length of the two boards' combined thickness. So I had to be careful.

Attach the lights.
It is easier if you move the star up onto sawhorses or a work table at this point. Start at the center of the bottom of your star with the female ends of the plugs. Tack on all three light strands at once. Stagger the starts of the strands so that your lights will be more evenly spread out. Orient the plastic staples on the boards to ideally strain the wires the least.

Let me know if you try it out in the comments! Any other exciting light displays that you've made?