Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Paper Snowflake Tutorial


 This is not your grade school snowflake.  I wanted to make a special Shout Out to the gals at Park Creek...thanks for teaching my mom this technique.  And Mom, you were a great teacher, thanks!

Ready?  Here we go...


Step One and Two:  Get a square piece of paper.  Regular copy paper works just fine and is what I'm using in this tutorial.  Fold your square into a triangle.  Fold again into a smaller triangle.

Step Three:  While holding the triangle with the folded side down, cut along the longest side, evenly spaced and not all the way to the top (don't cut your paper in pieces).  You are going to make three cuts, which will give you four strips all attached at top.

Open it up and you get this.

Step Four:  Put a dab of glue stick on one corner of the inside square and glue to the other side of the inside square.

Step Five:  Turn your paper over, so that the first folded square is on the bottom.  Repeat glue for next inner square.  Turn your paper over again, and glue the second outermost square together.


  
Step Six:  Repeat for final outside square.   


Step Seven:  Repeat Steps One through Six 5 more times, for a total of six of these "arms".


Step Eight:  Glue three arms together at the points.  If you take the center and add glue to each side of the point, you can easily add the two others-one to each side.  Repeat with remaining 3 arms.
Step Nine:  Glue the center points of each of your three armed segment to each other.  I used glue and paper clipped the two points together until the glue dried.  Tape would work here, too.


Step Ten:  The final frontier...this may not seem necessary at first, but it helps immensely with stability.
See my stubby finger?  Those two cross sections need to be glued together.  Repeat all the way around the snowflake/star.

You are done!  Stick it on your tree, hang it from the ceiling, give as a hostess gift.  I just remembered as I'm writing this that I bought spray glitter!!!!  Oh, I hate when I forget that I have things.  I'll make another and spray it to show you.

I tried different papers, too.  This one is scrapbook paper.

And this is copy paper...just like the one you made!


Now, stop looking and go get flaking!

5 comments:

Jeans and a Sweatshirt- said...

Thanks for this tutorial. People have been loving my simple one so I've been sharing it.

Beretta Fleur said...

I'm trying this... after trying to glue the sides together for stability, I realized I was an arm short! Then I started ripping it with too much glue making the paper damp. Oh well, it's a fun way to spend a few minutes at my desk during work. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

I've made these with my special education students for years. We don't use glue, we tape the individual inner parts of the arm, then staple the 6 arms together and use a stapler to connect the arms. This is quick and the staples don't show. You can even mark the lines for cutting and they won't show either. Even if the cuts are uneven, jagged or curved they still turn out beautifully. We made a bunch yesterday, we gave one to the office for decoration, then received requests for 7 more from various people in the building. We hung the remaining 6 from the ceiling in the classroom.

Remember, if you use 8.5 in squares, typing paper, you will end up with a very impressive looking snowflake that is approximately 16 inches in diameter.

Anonymous said...

My son was making these while he was rehabbing. He made beautiful flakes though he said they were a little tedious. I think I'll make the "old-school" version first since I'm short on time and the granddaughter is only 6 so she will appreciate them just as well. Perhaps I'll get fancier next year. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Love this idea. I'm gonna try making with maps.