Snowflake Event!

(Image above from:

free Victorian Christmas cards  )

We have been having fun around here making paper snowflakes. It can become addictive! We have a tree done entirely in snowflakes, and have been arranging them and adding to them to get them just right. Here was our first round of snowflakes:

Some of the snowflakes are made out of photocopied sheet music:

Here is the tree after another paper snow-fall!

Several of the snowflakes came from free patterns online (links below) and the rest were made up "free-form" by the crew around here.

This tree was so much fun to decorate, The Pleasant Times would like to give you some free snowflake patterns, and to host our own Snowflake Blogging event the week of December the 12th! This event is open to all ages!

You can:
Make your own patterns for paper snowflakes to show on your blog (design blank below),
Show photos of your paper snowflake decorations (whether your own or one from another pattern)
Show photos of other snowflake crafts, be they

crocheted

sewn

rubber-stamped

and more

You can also:
Share photos of real snow around your area,
Share your favorite snowflake-related links,
Share any of your home-schooling activities that are snow-related,
Show off your snow-flake shaped sugar cookies on your grandmother's snowflake themed china,
Show your holiday dresses made from sparkly snowflake fabric,
Or whatever is related!

If you have something with snowflakes in your etsy shop, or want to remind folks of an old post you had up on snowflakes, please feel free to share!

In the mean time, The Pleasant Times staff will:
Try to figure out the link gadget thing usually used at these kinds of events,
Come up with some really neat snowflake pattern for you,
And try to glitter on the snowflakes on the tree!

This will not be a contest, and there will be no prizes, but we hope you will have a flurry of fun with your family making snowflakes and sharing them with others!

You will have a week to put your snowflake posts up, and feel to do more than one.

Here are some of our own paper snowflakes to get you started:
(You will have to fold and cut them yourself to see what the whole design looks like!)
Click on each one to enlarge (I know they are hard to see, sorry! They are really there-- ) , then print on fast print. Fold in half, then in fourths, then in thirds along the lines. Cut and then carefully unfold. With the bird below, you will want to make sure that you leave the beaks connected!

Below is one from one of our staff members:

And below is a design blank for you to experiment with your own snowflake designs!

And now for those promised links:

There are a treasure trove of snowflakes and snow crystal photos here- a great family study for school:

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/photos/photos.htm

Some of the snowflakes on the tree came from this site:

http://www.marcels-kid-crafts.com/snowflake-pattern.html  snowman

And a few from this site:

 www.daves-snowflakes.com

The tree topper in the lower photos is a twisted star, from this link:
http://howaboutorange.blogspot.com/2006/12/lacy-snowflake-tutorial.html  Use the suggestion from one of the comments and fold up your square to make your cuts, unless you enjoy using an exacto knife. Here is how I did it:

 Fold square in half to make a triangle;

 fold triangle in half again as shown;

 make a long cut from the bottom edge to about 1/2 from opposite edge.

Make about 5 of these cuts, and you will end up with the square as shown. Then follow directions from the site to finish.



Be sure to check back in later this week for recycled-paper paper chains!