Materials:
Six (or 7 for a fuller snowflake) pieces of paper (white copy paper will do, although you can use more elaborate types)
Scissors
Clear tape
Stapler
What to do:
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- Fold each of the six pieces of paper in half, diagonally. If the paper you are using does not make a perfect triangle, cut off the rectangular edge that sticks out and make it align perfectly. You should end up with a square folded into a triangle.
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- Fold the triangle in half again, noting where the folded “bottom” of the triangle is. Just two folds!
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- You will be making three cuts, spaced equally, cutting PARALLEL to the longest side of the triangle. Start at the folded short side and move towards the open short side. DO NOT cut all the way through – I left about a 1/2 inch uncut. Unfold the triangle again.
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- Unfold the triangle again. Turn it so that one of the points of the square faces you
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- Keeping your paper diamond side-up, roll the first two innermost paper lines together to form a tube. Tape these two pieces together. You should see triangle shapes on each side of the roll.
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- Turn the diamond over to the other side. Take the next two paper lines and pull them together on the opposite side of the tube and tape together as before. This will be a more rounded shape and wider than the first tube. Keep turning the paper and joining the paper lines together on opposite side in the same fashion until all paper lines have been joined.
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- Now do everything I just said five more times!
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- You should have six “arms” of the snowflake now – time to put them together! This is where I prefer to staple because tape doesn’t get all of the layers as well…Do the other 3 pieces the same way. Now you will have 2 pieces consisting of 3 strands or “arms” each. (For smaller snowflakes, it may be easier to use double-sided tape or white glue in place of staples.)
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- Staple the two new pieces together in the middle.
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- Staple where each of the six arms meet. This ensures that the snowflake shape is pulled into place.
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- All Done