A Snowflake Blizzard

Note: This is the second post in a series of the unveiling of our first ever Christmas Non-Tree.
To see the first post, go here.

I love snowflakes. Real snowflakes, paper snowflakes, glass snowflakes. They are a great way for me to enjoy the snow and winter wonder while staying warm and dry. It's also a great way to bring the winter wonderland into your home.

When I began formulating my plan for our very first Christmas Non-Tree, I knew I wanted to incorporate snowflakes. If I was going to throw tradition (ours and practically everyone's) to the wind, I wanted to embrace the non-tree idea and make it completely different from any of our previous trees. Enter snowflakes. They were my life for the past week. Every spare moment was spent cutting tiny geometric shapes out of folded paper. At one point my thumb was swollen and purple from the scissors and my finger tips bruised from folding. Still, though, I persevered.

Naive me thought about 75-100 snowflakes would be enough. Nope. I ended up cutting 193 snowflakes (yes, I counted).  I think I may be a snowflake aficionado now.

If you've ever wanted to know how to fold a snowflake, here you go!

1. Start with a square:

 

2. Fold in half diagonally:

3. Fold in half diagonally again:

4. You will have a smaller triangle:

5. Take one side of the triangle and bring in to the middle:

6. Bring the other side over so that the outer length lines up wiith the opposite outer length: *

*hint: sometimes you have to play around with steps 5 and 6 to get them to meet perfectly.

7. Cut the top and a bit of the point:

8. Cut random shapes out of one or both sides. Play around and experiment!

9. Unfold and check out your unique paper snowflake:

Stay tuned to see how I used these snowflakes to make our very first Christmas Non-Tree!
Part one - What is a Christmas Non-Tree?