{ Paper Snowflakes }

 

I have always been a very creative person, from the earliest of ages that I can remember.  If I could make it instead of buying it, I was all for it.

 

The past few years, I have been looking more into spending vintage, old timer Christmas as opposed to the newest trends or flashy snazzy decorations that some prefer.  There is something magical about the old way of doing Christmas, the homemade decorations, the vintage looking Santa and young kids holding presents in a snowy background, or old fashioned women in sweet aprons standing near a stove or a beautiful Christmas tree glowing with tinsel thrown about randomly.

 

That is the kind of Christmas that I remember from my childhood and the kind of Christmas that I prefer to celebrate. 

 

With that in mind, I have been making some cute decorations, and these snowflakes have been on my plans for quite a while.  I thought they would be really difficult to make but they are so easy and so quick to put together.

 

I have made 3 so far for my bedroom windows and 1 for my kitchen window.  I may make some more to place in different rooms throughout the house.

 

But I thought I would share, in case one of you want to give it a try, but also to keep it here on the blog for future years where I can come back and see the tutorial.

 

I found a few tutorials online and the first one I tried went horribly wrong because the lady didn't explain properly where to glue the pieces, but I found one that was wonderful and easy to follow, so here it is, hope you enjoy it as much as I did making these.

 

You are going to need 6 sheets of printer paper for each snowflake.

 

The firs thing you need to do, is to fold each paper up to make a square, then you're going to take a pair of scissors and cut off the excess.

 

Next, you will take each triangle and fold it in half again, as you can see below.  In other words, don't open up your squares yet, keep them as they are folded in a triangle shape, and fold them again in half.

 

Now take each triangle, and hold it, so that the folded edge is to the left of your hand, then make 3 cuts, just space them evenly, going all the way from the bottom to about half an inch from the fold, don't cut right through.

 

Once you've done that for all 6 sheets of paper, take each one, open it up gently into a square, it will look just like you see in the picture below.

 

Gently take the middle square, and bring each edge up and overlap it.

 

Using a glue stick as I am doing below, or you can use some tape, secure it in place.

 

You're going to do this two more times until all squares are secured, remembering to keep flipping the paper back and forth for each one.  So, secure the first middle square, then flip the paper over, and secure the next, then flip it back over again and secure, and flip it one last time and secure the last outer square.

 

This is what will give it the 3D look, and this what the first tutorial I found, forgot to explain, so I kept the paper as it was and just glued them all one over the other which did not work at all. 

 

Now flip the paper complete over to the other side, and again, grab the next square, and overlap the edges, securing them again with tape or glue.

 

Next do the same for each sheet of paper, you will have 6 final 3D looking shapes.  Now you're going to take each one, and line it up with the next, at one of the points, top or bottom it doesn't matter.

 

Just line up the points as best as you can, then staple them together.

 

 Just like you see below, all six secured together.

 

You will end up with something like this.  I know it doesn't look right yet, so what you're going to have to do now, is take each individual snowflake and staple it to the next, in the middle (or side rather of each one)

 

I hope you can see it in picture below, you're essentially attaching each snowflake to each other so it creates a big circle.

 

That is it.  You have created a beautiful huge 3D snowflake to hang in your home as a Christmas decoration.

 

I just love the way they look, and once you make the first, you will understand just how quickly they come together.  It is something you can make with your kids, maybe do all the cutting and stapling, but have them glue the inner pieces and help you put it together.

I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial and give it a try.  If you do, I would love to see how yours turned out or how you used them in your homes.  Be sure to come back and show me.