Supercool Snowflake Tutorial!

My Aunt Jane taught 2nd grade in Claremont, CA and passed down the secret for these awesome snowflakes! I used to do them every year in my classroom. One New Year's Eve I did a whole snowflake theme and made about 50 of them out of shimmery blue wrapping paper, with white on the back. I hung them from every ceiling in my house. (Sometimes I still find a piece of double stick tape on the ceiling.) Once you start, you won't be able to stop! Enjoy!

For each snowflake you will need six squares of paper, scissors, adhesive (tape/gluestick/whatever), and a stapler.

I began with an 8 1/2 inch x 8 1/2 inch Square of paper for a 16 inch snowflake (you can use any size square).

Fold it in half, diagonally (corners together) to make a triangle. Then do it again.

Mark each triangle as shown (well, really after the first you can do it without lines, but if you want kids to help the lines are a good idea.) DO NOT cut all the way through! Stop cutting about a half inch from the edge.

You will cut strips about one inch apart, going from the side with only one fold toward the side with two folds, parallel to the side with four pieces of paper. (Huh? Yeah, better go by the above image.)

Open it up and you will have a diamond with four triangles on each side.

Put glue/adhesive/tape on every other point. Where the x is. You will be rolling two up, and then the alternate two down.

See. Two up.

Then turn it over, and do two the opposite direction...

Thus, ending up with this cool thing. You will need six of these to make one snowflake.

Staple three together at the point and then at the place where they touch together (where the stapler is in this pic.) Then staple two of these together.

These can be hung by a nylon thread and look absolutely stunning!

Big B answered a date for Winter Formal last year, by hanging these all over her entry. The smaller snowflakes had the letters Y,E, S, cut into their patterns. Tricky!

Happy Snowflake making!

Come back and send me links to your beautiful creations! We've used these to decorate the stage for Christmas programs, the cultural hall for RS Christmas dinner, and hung them from the eaves! Beautiful!