If you are preparing for the winter holidays, it's time to learn how to make a round snowflake with your own hands. With this decor you can decorate windows, cabinet doors, postcards, gift wrapping, from dense elements to make a garland, Christmas toys or just nice openwork pendants on threads.
Choose the size of snowflakes
Before you learn how to make a round snowflake out of paper, decide on its purpose and size. It will depend on which sheets to buy for work, as well as the manufacturing method. Ordinary snowflakes for window decoration are made of white office paper used for printing. Such decoration is performed with the help of scissors, which cut out the pattern on a workpiece folded in several layers.
If you need large snowflakes made of thick paper or cardboard that cannot be folded, you will have to use the silhouette cutting technique according to a previously applied drawing (printed or made in pencil, for example, on a stencil).
If you need very small snowflakes, and in large quantities, it is better not to suffer with cutting, but to buy a figured hole punch with the corresponding cliche. High-quality tools will make it possible to make decor even from fairly thick paper.
What is required
So, we have already figured out how to make a round snowflake: cut with scissors, a knife or a hole punch. Now we will decide on materials and tools. Prepare the following:
- paper;
- scissors;
- a pencil and an eraser if you draw a pattern for cutting;
- schemes (optional);
- a compass (if you make a blank for a snowflake for them);
- hole punch with figured cliches (for small snowflakes).
In fact, to make a spectacular decoration, thin paper and sharp scissors are enough.
How to make a blank for cutting
To understand how to make a round snowflake in stages, take sheet A4. Usually paper is sold in a rectangular form. To get a circle, you need square blanks. So, to create a blank for cutting, work like this:
- Lay the landscape sheet in front of you vertically.
- Take the upper left corner and bend diagonally to the right side. At the top, you get a square folded diagonally, and at the bottom - a narrow strip.
- Cut a narrow strip.
- Next, the work is already with the square. Fold it in half and again in half (you get a triangle).
- In the resulting workpiece, bend the corners in opposite directions.
- Trim the resulting horns.
In this sequence, blanks will be created for cutting different snowflakes.
How to make a round snowflake out of paper in stages
A blank for cutting snowflakes and it can be done in a slightly different way. The sequence of work is as follows:
- Take a standard A4 sheet and place it vertically.
- Bend the lower left corner up to the right so that an isosceles triangle is obtained from the sheet.
- Align the lower right corner with the one on the upper left.
- Bend the resulting workpiece in half along the vertical axis of symmetry. Cut the excess line.
- Carefully cut along the edge of the workpiece.
- Make a pattern of the snowflake itself. Take the same as in the diagram below.
- Expand the workpiece. If folds are too visible on it, gently iron the product with an iron through a sheet of paper.
Now you know how to make a round snowflake out of paper in two ways. It is not difficult to make a blank for cutting, although if you do not want to fold the sheets, cut off the excess, and snowflakes of a very specific diameter are required, you can work in another way.
How to make a beautiful round paper snowflake
This option is based on a blank created using a compass. Work like this:
- Draw a circle on the sheet.
- Cut the workpiece.
- Fold it in half twice to make a quarter circle.
- Make one more addition (usually stop at this).
- If the size of the workpiece and the thickness allows, you can add more.
- Cut out the pattern. You can expand the last bend (if the workpiece turned out to be too dense) and cut some more small parts.
Experimenting with the number of additions, cut options, you can make an unlimited number of the most intricate products. If you are tired of working with scissors, you can use a hole punch with any cliche, even a standard round one. With its help it is easy to get very unusual patterns of snowflakes.
Ready-made patterns for cutting
In order not to think for a long time how to make a round snowflake of a beautiful shape with carved and delicate details, take any template that is in special periodicals for needlewomen. Typically, the diagrams are depicted next to the version of the finished product that will be obtained from this stencil. Redraw the template to your folded workpiece. And if you want to make many identical snowflakes, it is better to make a stencil out of cardboard and circle it on the workpiece already.
When analyzing the patterns found, you need to understand what part of the circle they are designed to cut. The number of bends that need to be done on the original workpiece will depend on this. The illustration shows the patterns that are for 1/6 of the circle. It is easy to determine by comparing the scheme and the finished sample.
The selection below shows the diagrams for 1/12 of the circle. If your paper is thin, or you are working with foil, then the previous templates can be easily used for 1/12. All patterns are mirror symmetrical, and therefore if you take only half, then cutting out with scissors will require fewer elements.
If you have a good imagination, and you do not like ready-made templates, you can combine your patterns based on the patterns you saw.
Curly Hole Punches
How to make a beautiful round snowflake of large size, we figured out, but you can’t cut a tiny piece from a sheet folded into several layers. If you need a lot of small snowflakes (up to 7.5 cm in diameter) you can buy a figured hole punch with the corresponding cliche. There are options for creating very miniature parts, for example, 5-6 mm. Different manufacturers can find different fishnet cliches. With such holes, many snowflakes can be easily and effortlessly cut from both thin and thick paper. Pleasure is not cheap, but the result is fast and looks spectacular and realistic.
You saw how to make a round snowflake with your own hands out of paper in different ways. Such options are suitable for working with foil, and for preparing templates for burning on fabric.