Halloween Crafts: Make Your Own Halloween Snowflakes!

Halloween Crafts: Make your own Halloween snowflakes to decorate your home or office this holiday season. They're quick and easy to make, and lots of fun!

For each of your Halloween snowflakes you'll start with a square or a circle of paper in a Halloween themed color. Construction paper works well for this, both for its thickness and the fact that it comes in both orange and black.

If you don't have colored paper available, you can use plain white paper for this project. Just color it orange and black with crayons or craft pens. You can also use wrapping paper, or magazine pages that just happen to be in the colors you need.

Start by folding your paper in half. Then fold it in half again in the opposite direction. And then fold it in half a third time. What you end up with should look like the shape of a slice of a piece of pie, and be eight layers thick.

Next you'll cut your design into your Halloween snowflake. Remember that you're actually cutting half-designs into some portions. On the two sides that have folded edges (these would be the two longest sides), you will only cut half of your design; for example, half a skull shape, or half of a pumpkin shape. Later when you unfold your snowflake, you'll be able to see that both halves have come together.

For the middle section of your pie shape, you can cut full images because that section won't double when you unfold it. All of your half-shapes will be on edges where there are folds to act as the center line.

Next you'll unfold your design and see the results of your cuts. If you don't think you have made enough cuts, you can fold it back exactly the same way and make additional cuts before going on.

You can hang your Halloween snowflakes as decorations by themselves or you can use them as decorations on other things. For example, you could use orange Halloween snowflakes glued to a large black triangle to make a Halloween pennant. To dangle them from the ceiling, just use a bit of thread or fishing line, (threaded onto a sewing needle), to tie them, and tape the other end to your ceiling with clear tape.

This is a great project to do with a group of children. If you hold a Halloween party, a grown-up can cut out the basic shapes ahead of time, and then the children can do all the cut outs. Watch how different their creativity makes them come out, even though they all start with the same shape!

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