Sometimes, it isn’t the new that delights, but the old that feels new. Chatting over lunch on Saturday led on to a little light paper cutting activity, and soon we were on to making Christmas snowflakes.
For the uninitiated (and in case you DO want to try this at home), cut out a circle of white paper. You can use a square too, but the circle gives you a better snowflake shape. An easy way to do the circle is to draw round a side plate. Feel free to use paper that’s already been printed on one side – you’ll cover up the reverse later.
Now fold the circle into quarters, so you end up with a pie/piece of cheese/wedge shape. Trace some shapes on the thinnest edge (ie the ones with all the cuts to the outside): geometric shapes like squares or triangles can look good. Make sure that you don’t draw too close to the point of the pie.
Take some sharp scissors, and cut out the shapes from the outside edge. You can get fancy, and do some shapes on the inside edge, and even cut into the middle of the pie shape, but start with outside edge for now. Unfold the shape carefully. You now have a snowflake.
To add to the full homemade Christmas decoration feel, stick the snowflake onto coloured tissue paper and trim the edges. The tissue paper will show through a bit like a stained glass window. For full effect, blutack the decoration onto a window or glass door panel. The light will shine through AND show off your snowflake. Sorted.
We must have spent upwards of 40 minutes, cutting more and more snowflakes, as we remembered how to do them, how to make them look fancy. Cutting bits out of the middle does help the snowflake effect – think slightly like a paper doily, but more holes/shapes in the middle. You can of course put cake on top of your snowflake, but then it won’t look as good hung up afterwards…
I remember making lots and lots of these at my grandparents. They had spent time in Germany when I was tiny, and had a homemade Christmas decoration book. A lot of things in there were more complex, but this was the one we did a lot. For full stained glass window effect, you can cut the shapes out of black card, so that they form the ‘lead’ connecting the ‘glass’ of the coloured paper shapes.
Today, all of a sudden, it was making paper fans. Lots of concertina folds along a piece of paper, bend over one end of the paper once done. Proceed to fan yourself with gusto. But all of a sudden, we started remembering more – sticking multiple fans together to create a peacock, or even enough to make a whole pleated circle. It’s a good enough way to let your tea go down, I guess.
I won’t claim that we’d make Blue Peter makes status. But there is something about making an item from hand, with a humble material such as paper, that is very appealing. When we’ve moved on to paper chains, I’ll let you know.