One day last week when I should have been doing something a little more constructive I sat down and cut paper snowflakes. I don’t remember when I last cut out a snowflake but it has been years and years and it was really fun.
I first cut one from regular copy paper…it is on the right side, second from the top. It worked but it was really thick to cut and hard to get all the points the same.
I next tried vellum paper. It was better than the copy paper but was still thick when all folded up. A thick bunch of paper is really hard to cut and it is definitely hard to get the same sized cuts on all points. The 2 snowflakes cut from vellum are top right and second from top on left.
Like the Three Bears story I did find the paper that was “just right”. The paper filters that you use when making coffee are very thin and perfect for making snowflakes. They are also great too as they don’t have to be squared up like regular paper, just fold the circle in half then thirds. The top left snowflake is made from a paper coffee filter as are the bottom two-one on left and one on right.
Oh, by the way I used just a small amount of school glue stick on a couple of points and suck them to my window.
You can follow the step by step process to make a snowflake from folding to cutting, just click to download the photos. I just can’t get them in order but think once they are download then the order is correct. The folding in half is to mark the center point before folding the filter in thirds. Oh, by the way the purple spot is some jelly I dropped on the filter - was trying to eat a quick peanut butter and jelly sandwich as I was making the snowflake. You know multi-tasking!
There are all kinds of tutorials on the internet – just Google paper snowflake. I like to make my snowflakes with either 6 or 12 points like real snowflake crystals. A tip for getting better cuts is to use a pair of nail scissors. They seemed to work better than my really sharp scissors. The coffee filters are so easy to cut to get intricate snowflakes too. I did use a dry iron to flatten the filter before folding and cutting.
I had to stop making snowflakes until I get more coffee filters as I had better not run out so there is none to make coffee, especially when we are having family for Christmas. I am not a coffee drinker, I prefer hot tea, so it doesn't matter to me but my family does like their coffee so being the nice gal that I am I stopped cutting them up.
The beautiful paper snowflake a mystery until you see it unfolded in all it’s beauty. Think that is one of the things that make it so fascinating. to do
Lynn
