Fancy some festive folding? You’ve come to the right place. This origami star pattern is a great way to use up old scraps of paper, like leftover wrapping.

You can pop these stars on presents as gift toppers, string them together to make a Christmassy garland or simply hang them proudly from your tree. And even better, they only take a couple of minutes to make. Magic.

Before you start
Make sure you use a square piece of paper. Using patterned paper? Start with the plain side up.

Step 1

Create a triangle by folding the top corner of your square down to the bottom corner.

Top tip: Crease confidently as you go to create crisp fold lines.

Step 2

With the longest part of your triangle at the top, fold in half.

Then, taking both layers, fold in half again.

Step 3

Fold the top two layers back up to the right.

It should look like this.

Step 4

Next, unfold the paper completely. Reinforce your smaller creases to create valley folds. Not sure what these are? They fold in.

Step 5

Pinch the left and right corners of your paper and push them towards the centre. Your shape will start to flatten as the top and bottom corners meet.

Push your folds in together and flatten the front to create a diamond shape.

You should end up with a shape a bit like a fox’s face.

Step 6

Take each ‘ear’ and push them down towards the centre, so that the flaps inside overlap.

The paper should crease along the folds at the centre front and back to create a 3D shape.

It should look like this inside.

Step 7

Pinch the crease at the centre front and fold it to meet the right hand edge of the star. You should now have a star with 4 points.

Flip it over and repeat with the centre back crease to form the fifth point.

And voila, you have your star!