Wish Stars

Thu, January 24 2013

Wish star, Ganesha Red, unlit

I don’t tend to use things like paper lanterns, but wish stars were just so unique that I had to give them a try. These folding paper stars are perfect for filling with  light and decorating a child’s bedroom or a party area. They’d be great for birthdays, holidays and other events, too.

Let me preface this by saying I’m not pro photographer, and the photos on the website show Wish Stars in the best light — pun intended. However, they also overshadow some of the faults of these little decorative pieces.

The wish star comes folded in the package. You have to unfolded it and tie two strings together from two “arms” of the star to make it 3D. I feel like this is really a two-person project. I struggled a bit and was worried about the integrity of the stars. They’re a paperboard, but there’s some angles you don’t want to bend too far for fear of ripping it. You can tie a knot and then attach a hook, wire or other material to hang the wish star wherever you’d like.

One of the problems I ran into, and you can see it in the pictures, is that it’s hard to get the strings to line up quite right. You might consider taping your star closed, instead. When the knot isn’t tight, the star looks a little sloppy. Another issue that I ran into is that the points of the star are a little delicate. I accidentally brushed one against the wall and it bent. I can pinch it back into shape, but a slightly thicker paper might help with this. I’m unsure if it would make it easier to mold into shape, however.

Because of the placement of the strings, your wish star will hang upside down. This is a bit weird for me. I’d rather see that single point on top. I’m sure you can fix something to make this happen, but the default position is upside down. I also found the wish star a little difficult to hang, but I’m sure if you had some nice, thick ribbon that matched, it would look much better than the photos I was able to snap for review purposes.

In this first picture, I’m holding it out to the side so you can see the string, the shape and the color without any lights turned on. The photo looks a little washed out, though, because of my flash. The red is actually a vibrant orangey red in person. For reference, those are actually black curtains behind it. As you can see, the arms don’t quite meet how they should, and this puts strain on the center of the star.

There are unique designs cut into the wish stars, and thin layers of colored paper are attached here. This lets colored light through and also reflects onto your walls and other surfaces. The wish stars are almost kaleidoscopic because of this. I was sent two wish stars, but believe me when I say that photographing one of them was difficult enough. d= The one I like the best is “Ganesha Red.” The tissue paper is purple and yellow, and while this might sound like a poor color scheme, it actually looks really neat.

Wish star, lit up

In fact, something you should keep in mind about your wish star is that it looks much better lit up than folded or even put together without a light. I think you can see from this next image how really cool the wish star looks when lit, even though you can’t see all of the star.

The manufacturer sent me some lights to use with this, but you don’t have to use theirs. They were basically LED lights on a string. Turn on the lights, drop them in the slot by the strings, and make sure they’re secure. There’s a total of 4 LED lights in this star,which is why it lit up so brightly. You can play around with other colors, but you’ll probably want a light on a string so that you can place it where you want and move it around inside the star for optimum lighting. In fact, I almost think these would look good with a string of icicle lights. There’s no platform or shelf of any sort inside the stars, though. You shouldn’t use a candle, and there’s no place to even rest an LED tealight without a string.

The lights you can order with these stars are one-time use, though. While you can turn them back off, you might have some lights that recharge or use batteries that you can change, which is a little less wasteful. If you only want to use these for a single event, however, that won’t be a problem.

Wish stars do look pretty cool, but you may have a harder time putting them together, hanging them and finding lights than you expect. Be prepared to spend a little time with them so they’ll look their best.

Tagged: light, parties, wish star
Categorized: Decor, Reviews
Commented: 2 Comments

• The Fault In Our Stars
• Light Up the Night
• A Night With the Silver Stars