Hanging Star Lanterns; a Christmas Front Porch Decorating Idea

These DIY Star Luminaries were a result of a “compromise” between my husband and myself when it came to decorating the outside of our home for Christmas.  He didn’t want to hang lights, I did…. result… hang giant stars from the front porch instead.  For more info just keep reading, if you like this project you may also like to see how we hung a few Witch Hats from our porch at Halloween. 

Last Christmas as we were getting ready to put the lights on the house I could tell by the look on my husbands face that he was soooo not in the mood to do it that year.   He didn’t want to fight with the ladder, and the lights, and the weather.  I didn’t want to leave the house not lit up for the Holiday, but also didn’t want to make a big deal out of hanging lights.  A few weeks later we were at the store and I spotted these GIANT stars. They were paper but had a wax coating and I thought that they “might” hold up outside on our porch.  I brought them home and we hung them on the porch and I LOVED IT!

You might be asking, “Melissa, why are you posting a Christmas Front Porch Decorating Idea two days BEFORE Christmas?”  Well it’s pretty simple, I just got bogged down this month.  Normally I try to stay pretty ahead of the game when it comes to blogging, but sometimes I have to tell you that I do NOT want to decorate my front porch for Christmas in October.  I just can’t seem to get myself to work that way. So I’m posting this today hoping that you’ll “file the idea away” (or pin it) to remember “to do” next year! (I also think these would look really cool for New Years)

In October after I shared my idea for Witch’s Hat Luminaries, the post went totally viral, much to my surprise. In that post I stated that we hung the Witch’s Hats on the front porch using the same hooks that we used to hang the Stars for Christmas.  Inevitably I got a bunch of emails asking me HOW I hung the stars… So today I’ll share with you how I did it.

The stars were purchased at IKEA two years ago, but I’ve seen them on AMAZON and TARGET.  They are paper stars but they have a waxy coating to help them stand up to the elements.  Our porch does not get much rain/snow and is well covered. The stars held up very well last year, this year I think we might lose one of them.  The stars were not crazy expensive so I don’t mind replacing a few.  That being said if your porch gets lots of rain/snow/wind this might not work for you.

To hang the stars you’re going to need:

Command Outdoor Hooks

Paper Stars Lanterns (AMAZON) or TARGET

White Light Strands

Extension Cords

Twist Ties

Most of the stars are hinged, you fold OPEN the star.  What you are going to do is insert a bunch of lights into that hinge.

Depending on how far down you want the stars to hang from the ceiling,  bundle the end of the lights into a ball (I just left mine bundled the way they came in the box, at the half way point).

Insert the bundle into the star and close it.

Use the white twist tie in to hold the star closed and to keep the lights inside.

Hang the command hooks on the porch in the locations that you want the stars. You’ll also want to run a few hooks feeding back to the porch so that the light cords are not hanging down.

After all of the stars are hung simply plug the lights all into each other and run an extension cord down the porch to wherever your plug is. I’m sure that someone can think of a more “genius” way to run the cords, but we just plugged them all into each other and it worked.

That’s it!! Super simple and easier than hanging TONS of lights on your front porch…

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