Red and White Paper Snowflakes for the Holidays

Last Updated on December 11, 2018 by lydiaf1963

I’ll bet you’ve seen these 3D paper snowflakes on Pinterest or YouTube. They’re a lot of fun to make and you can use almost any size and type of paper to make them. It’s a great way to recycle paper, too. I thought I’d tell you about the snowflakes I made to go with my Red and White Holiday Theme.

A couple weekends ago Rick and I were wandering around the city when we ran into a gentleman with one of those bluetooth speakers stuck in his pocket. He was listening to jazz and sharing it with everyone else on the street. Rick commented on the music and the two of them struck up a conversation about jazz in Spain. Before we parted company the man pulled out a paperback book and gave it to us. It was a collection of his essays. It had been self published. There were two things that caught my eye (and it wasn’t the prose…) 1) the print was red and 2) the printer made a font out of the man’s handwriting. It was usual to say the least.

As it turns out, the man had published 4000 copies and when we met him, he was on his weekly jaunt around town to give his unsold copies away. My first thought was, “Great, what am I going to do with this, throw it into the first recycle bin?” My second thought made me cringe a little. It was, “Maybe I could use the paper for crafts!…Oh, I could NEVER destroy a book!” (yet I could recycle it without flinching…what can I say?)

Once I got over my innate horror at tearing pages from a book, even a self indulgent one, I found I enjoyed myself. I’ve made three of the 3D paper snowflakes and still have plenty of papers left for other projects.

To make a 3D Paper Snowflake you will need:

• 6 sheets of paper, any size
• scissors (I love these Fiskars Micro-tips, they’re my go to scissor for most crafts)
• glue gun and sticks or tape or stapler (or a combination)

How to make a 3D Paper Snowflake:

Fold a sheet of paper to make a square, cut off any excess with scissors.

Fold the square in half to form a triangle, then again to form a smaller triangle. You will have a fold and two open “legs.”

Hold the triangle so the point is held by your fingers with the fold towards the top and the legs at the bottom.

Make three evenly spaced cuts from the open side to about 1/2″ from the fold. You can adjust the depth of the cuts to suit the type of paper you’re using.

Open the paper. It will look like a series of squares.

Take the free ends of the innermost square and overlap the points in the center. Fasten with glue or tape. Be careful when using hot glue.

Turn the paper over and from the other side repeat with the next square.

Repeat until all the squares have been fastened. You should have a shape that looks like the photo above.

Continue with the other sheets of paper until you have 6 pieces.

Fasten 3 together at the points. They’re thick enough the hot glue doesn’t burn. Make a second set of three, then arrange them to form a snowflake, fastening the points and the sides of each section as necessary to hold everything together.

Attach a hanger to the top with glue or by punching a hole and tying on some ribbon or cord.

The paper snowflakes are pretty delicate. It’s probably best to keep them in place once you hang them. In the photo above you can see where the sections are falling apart from transporting the snowflakes to the park for photos. I repaired it with some tape. I only took them to the park to take photos. They should survive the rest of the holidays inside.

There are tons of videos on YouTube demonstrating how to make these if you’d like to watch a demonstration. You can experiment with different weights of paper for a more durable snowflake. This video shows how to make them from fabric.

Have fun!

More Red & White Holiday Decor: