Balls,bins, and embeddings of partial k-star designs

Define a $k$-star to be the complete bipartite graph $K_{1,k}$. In a 2014 article, Hoffman and Roberts prove that a partial $k$-star decomposition of $K_n$ can be embedded in a $k$-star decomposition of $K_{n+s}$ where $s$ is at most $7k?4$ if $k$ is odd and $8k?4$ if $k$ is even. In our work, we offer a straightforward construction for embedding partial $k$-star designs and lower these bounds to $3k?2$ and $4k?2$, respectively.