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Materials for Cutting Snowflakes

You don't need to spend a lot of money to make home made snowlakes. There are many different types of materials that you can use to make "paper" snowflakes. You could make the task as simple as folding a piece of tissue or paper towel and tearing out the designs or as complicated as a engineering project with charts, graphs and professional cutting tools.

I prefer the simple and quick method myself. Usually the most often type of paper used is plain, old typewriter,or copier paper because it is most commonly available. Any color of cellulose pulp is fine for making paper snowflakes.

That said, the sky is the limit as far as your creative imagination for other materials in making artificial snowflakes.

Look around your house for items you intend to toss or haven't used in years...consider whether they could be useful for crafts. Ask your friendly, neighborhood horder for supplies. Horders are not all looney tunes as the television shows would lead us to believe. I'd be willing to wager that a good many hoarder types would love to see their treasures put to good use. I'm not a hoarder but it breaks my heart to see all the perfectly good, usable items that pour into the landfills.

He'd probably be arrested today, but whe I was a youngster my dad made frequent visits to our local landfill (back in the 50's) to poke around and pick up any unbroken or reusable items. I loved going with him and never got hurt and had an absolute blast looking through the trash for goodies. We didn't have to worry about the needles and crazy stuff that goes on these days. We just watched for glass and sharp objects.

Suggestions for Making Snowflakes

Today all trash, no matter what condition, is just smashed and destroyed. Gleaners are discouraged or outright prevented from salvaging anything. At the end of every semester at colleges and universities, students literally fill the dumpsters with clothing, computers and perfectly usable furniture. The waste is atrocious. Think madison Avenue has something to do with the change in attituted for anything old. The trend now is if it isn't encased in plastic so thick you risk life and limb to open the package, it isn't worth giving or buying.

It is what comes, I suppose when there is a glut of products, so numerous it boggles the mind. I mean really, is there a need to have 650 breakfast cereals from which to choose? Stuff like this makes me crazy.

Here are a few money-saving suggestions of paper sources for making unique snowflakes.

• Tissue gift wrap paper, comes in many color varities and other brands as well.
   
  
• Brown, paper grocery bags
   
  
• Multi-colored foam sheets
   
  
• Newspaper, periodicals and old magazines. Comics section of the newspaper, brightly colored advertisment pages or photos from a magazine
   
  
• Old posters. These you can find in junk stores, second hand stores and garage or yard sales.
   
  
• paper gift wrap I've created thousands of really cool and brightly colored gift wrap background printables that would make fantastic snowflake ornaments.
   
  
• Construction paper is available at most grocery stores any more. You can get big bundles of construction paper in membership clubs like COSTCO or SAMS.
   
  
• Wax Paper gives the snowflakes a translucent appearance. Frosty miniflakes would be good patterns to make attractive Christmas tree ornaments.
   
  
• Paper Towels. Some are printed with intricate colored images.
   
  
• Aluminum Foil makes pretty cool looking ornaments in brilliant colors such as sky blue,flame red, and bright gold in addition to silver.
   
  
• Outdated calendar images. Some calendars have spectacular images that can become outstanding snowflake decorations. Haunt the yard sales and you're bound to stubble upon some pretty great old timetables worth recycling.
   
  
• Poster Board is a good material to create stencils for etching and applying decorations to trim and furniture.
   
  
• Christmas and greeting cards also have festive images that can make some pretty great snow flake decorations.
   
  
• paper plates. Virtually the as poster board only thinner and slicker on both sides usually, if you buy the cheapest ones in town. (Can't imagine using the most expensive ones...)
   
  
• Checkerboard or other decorative paper table cloths can be cut into pieces and divied up for snowflake patterns.