I was debating whether or not to post my snowflake-making pages again. Then today I was over at Heather Bellanca’s book signing event at McCartee’s Barn and …

…people were cutting all sorts of cool and creative snowflakes. One thing I was hearing, though, was people wanting to make their snowflakes have specific characteristics. Heather pulled up my old Snowflake Cutting Tips page on her device, which answered some questions. That clinched it for me. Yup, I’d republish this page.

I’m happy to post this page again. This snowflake-cutting-tips page has never gotten many views, but I love this because I like understanding how to be deliberate about making my cuts. Sure, the first few flakes of the year, made with random cuts, are thrilling, but then, unless you have some handle on what’s going on, the snowflakes all begin to look the same, so it’s good to have an idea of how to deviate in any way that you want.

Of course you can’t cut a snowflake unless you fold the paper first. My number one contribution to snowflake-making is to encourage people to use paper napkins for their snowflakes, as paper napkins cut easily, are already the right shape (a big square) and are generally plentiful. Oh, and one last tip, Scotch Magic Tape is works the best for sticking these winter creations to the window because the tape peels off of the window most easily when it’s time for the snow to go away.
Happy cutting!
Beautiful
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Love these! And infinitely better than messing around online. But just in case… https://www.geogebra.org/m/ayFkJAtk
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John, this is just too much fun!!!!
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Also, a special triangles trick for 60 deg is to fold the left square in half with a vertical fold. When the corner lines up with the crease, 60 degrees!
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John, what you describe was one of the very first paper folding tricks that thoroughly, completely and irrevocably knocked my socks off. I found it in on Page 9 of an old Dover book called Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding by T. Sundara Row. I can’t tell you how often I’ve actually found being able to fold a 60 degree angle to be handy to know. Here’s a link to my own set of directions for folding a triangle with equal angles https://bookzoompa.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/60-triangle2-e1418246402786.jpg from this post https://bookzoompa.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/paper-folding-squares-and-equilateral-triangles/
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This post is marvelous. Thank you for sharing it again. I’m sharing it with my school faculty and staff.
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hurrah!
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