A paper snowflake tutorial

I know it’s still only November, and I imagine it will be a couple of weeks at least until I put up our tree, but I thought I’d have a go at making some of these lovely paper snowflakes for a simple, minimalist festive look. Yes I did just say that – I mean the tinsel and baubles will come out, I’m sure, but for now this is a great craft activity which looks really impressive but is so easy to do.

I made my first one in less than an hour, and the second was a joint effort between myself and the kids. Sam took one look at my snowflake and asked me to show him what to do, and before you know it we were all busy cutting and folding way past bedtime (theirs, not mine). So if you’re looking at this and thinking, ‘I can’t make that!’ then you’re wrong, as if a six-year-old can master it, then so can you.

I used simple white printer paper, and also tried with a bit of wrapping paper. All you need to start with is a square of paper, a pair of scissors, some sellotape, a stapler and some string if you’d like to hang it up.

1. Once you have your square (as you can see in the first photo, I used A4 so folded over one corner and cut off the surplus to make a square), fold it over into a triangle, and then fold again to make a triangle half the size.

2. Now take the folded edge of your triangle and make three cuts in the paper, from the fold towards the opposite side, so each cut ends about the same distance away from the edge.

3. Now open it out so it’s a square again, only one with lots of cuts in it. The cuts kind of look like little squares, one inside the other. Take the corners of the innermost, smallest square and roll them inwards, fixing with a little bit of tape.

4. Turn the whole thing over and repeat, pulling the next biggest square up and fixing with tape to form a slightly larger tube. Turn over and do the same again, and again, until you are left with something that looks a bit like the photo below. This is one ‘arm’ of your snowflake.

I think it’s a bit of trial and error as to how many you will need to make. I aimed to make six but found I needed to to make either seven or nine depending on how full I wanted it to look. You can always add more if you need to, so I would say start with six and see how it goes.

5. Now you need to join them all up to make the snowflake. Divide your ‘arms’ into two groups and staple them together at the base. Now join both pieces and staple both bases together, as shown in the bottom two photos of the collage below.

6. Finally, join the ‘arms’ together. Staple each one to its neighbour at the point where they meet, to ensure the snowflake fans out all the way round. This part gets more fiddly the smaller your snowflakes are!

Looks good doesn’t it?

Now you can hang it up, decorate it or just prop it up around your home, to bring a bit of simple chic to your Christmas decor. Be warned though – once you start you will want to make more!

Why not try different colours and textures of paper, or you could even try spray painting them with some metallic paint or glitter to make them extra special.

If you do make one, I’d love to know how it goes.

x Julia

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