Let it Snow!

put the waltz of the snowflakes

on the walls this year

Mandatory listening: Let it Snow by Frank Sinatra + She and Him on repeat. 

Is it on?

Ok now we can talk.  

The other night I decided to make some snowflakes for literally no reason other than keeping my hands busy.  As it's me, before I knew it I had made a giant stack and our house was covered in paper clippings.  Now what?

Turns out you can totally make a super classy really cheap wall holiday wall display!

supplies:

  • White Kraft Paper
  • White computer paper (optional)
  • Sharp AF scissors (AF's not a brand it's an exclamation.)
  • Masking Tape

Without looking for it, I found an Oh Happy Day! post about making giant snowflakes, and since the house was already covered in paper snow I figured I should attempt it too.  I had thought about doing this in previous years but had no idea where to get big sheets of butcher paper, and put the call out to my friends but they didn't know either.

Later that day I had to go to Michaels anyway, and there found some white kraft paper in the wrapping section and thought ah-ha!  Over in the kids area they had even bigger paper for science posters but I was too cheap to buy it.  So it's been located for you now!

I know snowflake making is a "kid's craft," but I still find it kind of tricky to do.  Not like "too-hard", I mean, you can totally succeed at it, what I'm warning about is just don't beat yourself up if it makes you swear a few times.  I have to look up instructions every time (here if you need more help after seeing my photos below,) it took me a while to figure out how to get them on the wall (don't worry I tell you how below) and most importantly I also figured out a nifty little shortcut which is do not even worry about making a perfect square.  Sweet liberation! 

First up let me say the juniper is not there as a prop, although it looks great in these holiday-themed photos. It's there because I'm "storing" it on the floor.  I found it on the side of the street when walking the dog (also not a prop) and carried them home.  So far they've made a simple wall-hanging and added some decoration to the advent calendars, the rest of them are there on the floor asking me to think of something cool to do with them.  

Step 1: 

Fold your paper down to about the size you want your snowflake to be.  In this example I folded it all the way down (the full size of the wrapping paper) and then cut it.  It's kraft paper which means it's been tightly rolled so it can be a bit tricky to cut it in a straight line because it keeps rolling up on you but seriously don't even worry!  After about 15 snowflakes I finally figured out that you cut off all the uneven parts anyway so just have-at it and do not waste another second worrying about making perfect squares.

Step 2:

Fold it in half again.

Step 3 + 4: 

Next up is a tricky fold where you want to fold the corner so it's about in the middle and fold the other one over to match.  You can see on the first try I didn't get it right, so I opened it up and folded it again so that the two edges matched.  (Fixing this mistake is STEP 4 and is not to be worried about.  Extra folds hurts nothing. I  did it on approximately 98% of the snowflakes I made.  The other 2% went directly into the recycling bin.)

step 5:

Et viola! 

You have this weirdo looking folded paper.  

Step 6:

You can see on the top there all the non-matching edges because it wasn't a square to start with, but like I said just cut it all off.  You're going to be cutting shapes and patterns into it so don't even worry about cutting that part off straight either.  Don't you love crafting with me?  It's so low maintenance.  

Step 7:

Cut a bunch of different shapes into your folded thing, just remember that you need to have connections on both sides, so don't cut it all the way off.  I kept worrying because when you have to leave a folded edge it looks "square" but every time I opened it and found out it didn't look like that so worrying was for naught.   

Step 8:

Unfold it and be like all "damnnnnn look at this amazing kid's craft I just spent all my adult-time work on." 

But I'm pretty sure my scissor skills are pretty high for a kid, right?  

Real talk: So about putting the snowflakes on the wall....

It's a pain in the ass.

The paper does things like roll up which means your grand reveal to yourself might get ruined as above (I pressed the computer-paper ones under a big heavy book and that made it way easier to hang them)

Step 8: 

Masking tape is pretty easy to take off the walls later, and it's cheap so I used that to put them up.  Roll little pieces of tape and put it on the back making sure that none of the tape shows over the edges.  Something you might want to consider is the tape works best on the outside edges and top points, so keep in mind that the smaller the pieces out there are the better they look but the harder they are to get the tape on them.  Adjust according to what you're willing to put up with.  

Step 9: 

Hold it lightly against the wall where you want it, and when satisfied press down on one piece.  Smooth down from there and move onto the next place with tape, smoothing and pressing as you go along with a flat hand. If you don't press down and smooth you can end up with bubbles, and if you try and fix that later it's really easy to tear the paper (heartbreak!)

Step 10:

Look at what you've done and see what you think.  I noticed some bald spots and cut new snowflakes about the size I wanted to fill them in.  Also, make sure no pieces are flying away from the wall (they will be) and wherever that is,  roll up some more tape and put it under the problem area.  

Real talk continued: It took well over an hour to get them all up and I have to stick some of them back in the morning or through the day-  so maybe don't skimp on the masking tape like I did.  By that I mean, I think mine is old and not sticky and I also mean take a little extra time at the beginning and add more tape before you hang them up the first time.  

Step 11:

You're done!  Enjoy it.  Pour some rum-heavy eggnog, take some photos and send to all your friends and feel awesome, although a little sick of listening to "Let it Snow" (you listened to that instruction right?) Host a dinner party and act super casual, "oh these old snowflakes?  I only put them up when I don't care how I host" (subtle It's a Wonderful Life reference for you.)