Holiday Crafting: Paper Snowflakes

On the first weekend of November, the temperature dipped and I started to think about the holidays. After one evening of furious holiday pinning I was inspired to craft lots of decorations for our little home. We have a big opening between our kitchen and living room and a high ceiling, so my first decorating task was to fill some of that space. 

 I saw a couple of snowflake templates on Pinterest and was inspired to create some falling snowflakes in my doorway!

First I ordered my ingredients:

1. A 500 pack of thin white origami paper (the thinner the better to help make intricate cuts and avoid carpal tunnel--I've made over 100 snowflakes so far);
2. A roll of thin jute (burlap) string (you could try fishing line or unwaxed dental floss, but the jute holds glue really well and it matches my overall Christmas decor strategy);
3. A bottle of clear gel glue; and
4. Little 3M hooks that match my walls.

I held off on decorating until the weekend before November. I like to observe the "no Christmas til after Thanksgiving" rule, but I figured a few snowflakes wouldn't violate the spirit of the rule.

I haven't made snowflakes in years, so I brushed up on the six point fold and got to snipping!

The only rule is to leave as little paper on the snowflake as possible!

I laid the snowflakes under the string and dotted glue where the string would lay. For at least a few of the glue spots on each flake I used a tiny scrap of paper to sandwich the string for extra security.

The hardest part of the whole project is to measure and space out the hooks and the lengths of the string. A measuring tape is your friend here. Since my ceiling is so high I alternated strings of three and two.

This project only took a few hours (approximately five episodes of The West Wing). It was easy enough that when I finished, I thought, "Why not cut 60 more snowflakes for each windowpane on the long side of our apartment (and 48 more for some friends)?"At the end of the latter process, I was ready to be done with snowflakes for a while. Luckily, all of my snowflakes have lasted the two weeks since they went up, and I'm confident that at least the garlands will last the season to be packed away for next year!

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