How can you wrap a row of stars around an arc or circle?

Hi,

There are multiple options here, including live path effects. I would go with the tiled clone tool :
1) draw your "reference" star
2) set the rotation center outside the object
3) go to the tiled clone tool and choose 1 line, x columns, x being the number of stars you want around your circle
4) set all translations to zero
5) under the 'Rotation' tab, choose (360/x)°, x still being the number of stars, eg, if you want 12 stars, the rotation will be 360/12=30°
6) apply

If you want an ellipse, at then end, select all the cloned stars, optionnaly group them, and distort the bounding box using the handles of the selection.

Bonus of this technique : as the stars are all clones of the "reference", if you later choose to rotate your star, change it in shape or color, it will be applied automatically to all the stars in the circle.

Regards,