Last year the Children’s Centres ran a short course on Christmas crafts. It was not clear in advance what exactly would be involved, but the appeal was trying something new. One session was devoted to decorations, and these paper snowflakes turned out to be the favourite of the lot. They also happen to be very easy to make. Only a sheet of A4, some glue and a pair of scissors are needed. The steps below break the process down from the first cut to the finished decoration.
Start with a sheet of A4 and cut 12 strips 0.7 cm wide (the strips run along the short side of the sheet, so they come out 21 cm long). The size can be adjusted to taste.
Next, take 2 strips and fold each one in half, which shows where the centre of each strip sits. Lay one of the folded strips vertically and flat, then add a little glue (a glue stick works fine) at its centre. Set the second strip across the first at a right angle and glue them together.
Add two small dabs of glue to the horizontal strip on either side of the vertical one. Take two more strips and place one vertically beside the first, with the other on the opposite side of what is now the central strip.
Add two small dabs of glue to each of the two outer strips, on either side of the horizontal one (four dots of glue in all).
Add two more horizontal strips – one above and one below the existing horizontal strip – woven over and under the strips already in place. The dabs of glue just applied will hold them.
Flip the resulting “mat” over, then add glue to the tips of the strips and fasten them as shown in the photo below to form 4 loops. The loops MUST point upward, or the finished snowflake will not come together during assembly. Set this part aside and repeat the whole process with the remaining 6 strips.
Once both halves are ready: one sits loops up, and the other goes on top loops down, but turned 45 degrees, for the snowflake effect. The loops of one half should line up with the strips of the other.
Add glue to the inner tip of one of the loops, thread a strip through that loop, and glue it down. The strip should stick out just past the edge of the loop. Repeat the same step with all the other pairs of loops and strips.
The paper snowflake is done.
It is possible also to trim the ends of the strips, but they look better left as they are, since that really does make them resemble snowflakes. A thread can be passed through one of the strips to make the snowflake easy to hang. Blu-tack works well for fixing them to windows.
During that short course, the participants also tried using glittery paper strips, though keeping those snowflakes glued together proved tricky! The plain paper version gives no such bother, all the same. Quite simple really: once the knack sets in, a single snowflake comes together in 5 minutes. May Christmas crafts bring joy!