Coastal Christmas Starfish Tree DIY

I'd seen lovely Christmas Starfish Trees in shop and I was smitten.

So this year I decided to make my own crafty holiday version with a few supplies.


One of the first things that caught my eye, was this collection of darling starfish trees.

Living on an island, of course I'd see them before the tourist towns, but I was never a fan. They just seemed like souvenir pieces, not something I'd want to display in my home during the holidays.

A time when my decor was very intentionally coordinated.

However, this time, in that particular setting, they seemed magical. And I wanted one.

Of course, it was July.

And I was in a major simplifying mode, so I snapped a picture and kept moving.

Surely we'd come back to see Santa in December and I could grab one then, if I were still smitten.

Well, we did go back and see Santa, several times, as a matter of fact over the next few years.

Somehow, though, those trees just never made it into my cart.

Well, this year a trip to that particular wonderland is clearly out.

So I decided to give it a shot and make a sea star tree on my own. After all, it seemed simple enough. I just had to find the right supplies, glue them together and glitter them up.

And that's exactly what I did.

How To Make A Coastal Christmas Starfish (Sea Star) Tree

I started by placing my starfish on a the table to assess what I had.

Quick tip, you definitely want to work on some kind of scrap paper, since the starfish flake when you first start handling them.

This is a very quick and easy DIY...but only if you have the right stars. The trick is to find them in graduated sizes and with knobs or bumps at the center.

They will create that sense of space and height when you glue them together - the illusion that your sea star tree has a trunk. 


To assemble the tree, I just plugged in my glue gun and added just a drop to the back of each starfish.

Then I placed one on top of the other.


The largest star was on the bottom, smallest on top. Pyramid style, if you will. 

I also made sure that I rotated each sea star slightly, so that they didn't line up perfectly. I wanted a natural tree look, with branches extending from all sides.

This way the tree will appear round.


When the tree was all glued together, my stacked starfish started to resemble my inspiration pieces.

Now, I didn't have a tiny sea star to use as a tree topper, so I figured I would find a button or something to pop up there later.

You know, creative license.


With my tree fully constructed, it was time to move on to glitter. More mess, so I needed a bigger scrap of paper. 

For this step I just coated the entire piece with Mod Podge and then dropped some snowy glitter on top. It's the same glitter I used on my Christmas candle holder. 

The Mod Podge sealed my starfish, so they didn't flake anymore, it acted as glue to secure the glitter and added a bit of shine to any spots the glitter didn't hit.


So far so good, right? Well, not quite.

Remember my plans for a creative tree topper? Yeah, that didn't work out so well. I combed through my craft closet with no luck at all.

Nothing worked. It all looked terrible and a bit a junky. I wanted that clean, elegant style that I fell in love with in the shop. 

So back to the drawing board I went and I gently tore the top star away from the rest of the tree, repositioned it as a topper and glued it back into place.

It actually fit really well.


I finally have my own little coastal Christmas starfish tree.

It's a bit smaller than the ones I saw in the shop all those years ago, but that's ok. It came with a tiny price tag.

Plus, I live in a tiny house.


And now that I know what I'm doing, I could make a whole forest full of them in varying sizes and shades of white. 

But Santa thinks this one is perfect.

I'm not going to argue with the big guy so close to Christmas.

I mean would you? 😉

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