Craft Advent 2: Christmas Snowflakes

This is the first of the Guest Posts for Craft Advent. These Christmas Snowflakes are thanks to Christine from Awfully Chipper. Christine is one of those rare writers who could write about her toast in a most lyrical, tangible way. She frequently describes something that makes me stop and think: “wow, I wish I had written that”. I met Christine in November, and she was a delightful as I had imagined she would be (and tiny. Only that I was wearing the baby in a sling, I possibly would have engulfed and smothered her to death in a hug, which would have been a huge loss to the International blogosphere) (…And her family of course)

But enough of my wittering; I am immensely honoured to welcome Christine into our warm wee nest:

I don’t know if this even qualifies as a craft, it’s so simple. But when Emily asks, I can’t resist getting in on the action. And it’s festive and seasonal and looks pretty too.
I’ll admit up front that though your kids are going to want to help with this, it’s not the easiest thing for them to do perfectly. However, with a little aid from you with the folding and maybe also the cutting (yes, that’s all of it), they get to unfold some lovely snowflakes, which they will then want to stick on the windows and leave up till May. How you proceed from there is up to you.

And when they’ve gone to bed you can have a lovely time making your own (other) perfect snowflakes.

Now, the trick to snowflakes is all in the folding:

1. Take a piece of white paper. Make it into a square by folding it diagonally and cutting off the strip that sticks out.
2. Keeping the paper folded over, turn your triangle around so that the fold is at the top. Now fold one point down to the bottom.

3. Fold the long side all the way over the middle point. It will stick out past the rest of the paper.
4. Turn your triangle over and fold over the sticking out half, as if you’re wrapping it around.

5. Fold the triangle in half lengthways. Make sure the point has all the closed ends, not any open sides. The ends will be uneven at the top; that’s fine.
With a sturdy scissors, because it’s quite tough to cut through this many folds, cut off the top straight across as shown. If you like your snowflakes to have a hole in the middle, cut off the tip too, as far up as you want.

Then go crazy with the other cutting. The more you cut, the more delicate (and hard to open without tearing, if you’re letting a small person do it) the finished article will be.
Unfold, and admire your seasonal handiwork.

Thank you Christine! I’m really looking forward to making these later: pot of tea + slice of cake + scissors + paper = Snowflake Heaven!

• Awfully Chipper Blog,
• Christmas craft,
• Christmas decoration,
• Craft Advent,
• Paper cutting,
• Paper snowflakes