Early in our marriage, my husband and I went to a cultural crafts fair. While there, we saw some gorgeous ceramic stars that had copper wire wrapped around them. At $12 a piece, they were out of the price range for a young couple in grad school. We decided to try and make them ourselves. We even purchased a pack of copper wire at the craft store. However, we didn’t have any way to replicate the beauty of the glazed ceramic stars.
I held onto the wire. When we moved here six years ago, I decided to try to make applesauce dough for the stars, thinking it would be an easy project for my toddler to paint. The stars proved to be too brittle and I had almost given up on the project. I wasn’t ready to declutter the copper wire quite yet.
Having had such great success with salt dough ornaments, I decided to try again. We cut thick stars out of salt dough. After baking, I pulled out my children’s tempera paints and we painted them in various colors. It took a couple of coats of paint. Some leftover clear spray paint protected them while giving a nice shine. The copper wire was the finishing touch. Using needle nosed pliers, I curved one end into a swirl, wrapped it around to the back, and curved the other end into a hook for hanging.
living peacefully with children 
Those turned out really cute. I haven’t made any of my ornaments for the swap yet.