Here in Michigan, we have been digging out of a pretty good snow storm today.  It has been very frosty here, but it was pretty, fluffy white snow.  I would much rather deal with these paper snowflakes from inside my warm and toasty house instead.  And the plan is to sew them together into pretty garland, so you get a little sewing and fun mixed together.

When did you last make a paper snowflake?

This would be a great afternoon activity with the kids to cut out snowflakes and drink some hot chocolate. You can even use up all that junk mail or scrap paper to make them. I love traditional white flakes, but you could mix them up with any color to make a very cool statement.

Materials Required:

• Paper to cut out snowflakes
• Scissors For garland
• Your sewing machine
• Matching thread.

Paper Snowflake Refresher

Don’t worry, if you have not made these in a while, I am including a Free Downloadable Snowflake Template to get you started again and thinking frosty crystal design.

If you don’t have a great virtual spacial imagination, it can help to use the template to wrap your head around the paper snowflake dynamics until you get the hang of it again.

1. Using my template, cut out one of the hexagon shapes.
2. Snowflakes are six sided — starting to remember now?  Fold the hexagon in half. (Keep your design on the outside so you can see it to cut later.)
3. Fold it again in thirds.
4. Fold it again in half so you can see the design to cut.
   
5. Now, cut away the shaded part. If you are not exact, it does not really matter, every snowflake is unique!
   
6. Once you have cut out the design, very carefully unfold your snowflake.
7. Voila! A beautiful masterpiece.  Now cut out the rest of them and snip, snip, snip, until you have a pile of snowflakes. Once you’ve cut out the template snowflakes, you should be proficient enough to design your own.

Stitch the Snowflake Garland

1. I used an all purpose white thread in my sewing machine and set the stitch length to about 3 mm.
2. Grab your pile of snowflakes.
3. Start sewing right through the middle of the paper snowflake, I took about 3 stitches in between each snowflake before I started the next one. Just keep stitching and adding snowflakes until you get the length you want.  That’s all there is to it.
4. Drape a string across a window or wall.

   

5. Or let them hang straight down in your front window by the door.

How will you decorate with your garland? Why not make several rows of garland to hang down your windows? Don’t forget about work! Send a strand with someone special to decorate their work cubicle or office.

What creative things are you making?