Swirly Snowflake Stars
Is it a snowflake? Is it a star? Or is it just an all round fabulous hanging decoration?! Go as cool and crisp or colourful as you like, they will brighten up any festive occasion - and they're so easy!
You will need: Paper (this origami set worked brilliantly for us), Scissors, Glue or a stapler, Thread
1. Take a square piece of paper and fold it in half into a triangle shape.
2. Fold it in half again into a smaller triangle.
3. Holding it so that the fold line of your triangle is at the bottom, make a cut that goes through the middle of your shape, stopping at 5-10 mm before the top. Make two further cuts either side, evenly spaced between the middle and the edges of the shape, also going no further than 5-10 mm at the top.
4. Unfold your piece of paper.
5. Starting with the small square in the middle, curl the two corners towards each other so that they overlap, and stick them together.
We used a stapler for our big snowflake stars, for speed, and when they are facing forwards the staples are hardly visible. We used glue for our smaller creations, and a more solid kind of glue stick actually didn't take too long to get the pieces to stick - I'm going to try it with the bigger ones next time.
6. Flip your paper over and curl your next layer of strips towards each other, again sticking them together.
7. Repeat the last step two more times, until your square of paper has been transformed into this:
This is one point of your snowflake star, and you need six of these.
8. Once you have six points, pinch the tips of them all together and secure them. (We used a stapler for both sizes we made but strong glue or washi tape may do it).
9. To stop the segments flopping about when they're hanging you may wish to attach the sides to each other too.
We didn't have to attach the sides of our small ones, they just sort of looked after themselves.
10. Finally, string some thread through the top of one of your points, and hang it up!