Ballerina Snowflakes

        These are actually pretty easy, if you put a few things into consideration while doing them. Have fun!

Here is what you will need: 

1. Paper (two pieces for every ballerina, one printed with a template and one for the paper .snowflake. although I recommend a few extra practice sheets of course!
2. White card stock for the body.
3. Scissors.
4. (Optional) Glue.
5. (Optional) Fishing wire, to hang them on.
6.  Pencil.
7. Eraser

     First, you will need to print from the template (I printed them at 85% of their original size, since it did not fit the paper). I believe any ballerina silhouette would work, but it needs to have a tutu on in order to keep the snowflakes up.

     Now, take the time-consuming task of carefully cutting the ballerinas out, these will be a template you will then use to trace on to the card stock. I almost cut off a few ballerina fingers and wrists in this process, so I recommend waiting until the end to cut these part out to avoid any rips or tears.

Cutting the original template.

After cutting out the card stock and erasing.

     Now, use that to trace an outline for your ballerina on card stock, and then cut it out again. Of course, you could always use normal printing paper for the body, but it made it very delicate, and card stock made it more durable and sturdy. Then, erase all of the pencil lines on it. Then, set it aside!

You are already almost done! Now, you are going to need to fold a separate piece of paper like this in order to make your snowflake, and then cut it out however you want.


     First, you need to make your paper a square. Complete this task by laying the A4 paper out in front of you so it is wider than it is taller. Then, take the bottom left corner and fold it over until you get a triangle (watch the top edges to make sure they don't overlap, you don't want to make this part sloppy). Now you should have a rectangle of excess paper on the right hand side. You can go ahead and cut all of this off. I accidentally took the picture the wrong way, but the bottom part is the part you need to cut off.

After folding it.

After the second step (open).

     Secondly, Open it up. Fold it the other way so that when you open it, the creases go from point to point, like a kite. Now, close it again.

     Once it is closed, Take the right corner, and fold it over itself (as if it is trying to hug itself). And then, fold the left one over the right one. Now, it probably looks like a kite.

After both sides were folded over.

     Now, fold it in half so the flap edges are inside. Then, draw a pattern on it and cut! *Remember to erase the pencil lines before unfolding it* The hole in the middle may be too small or too big to fit the ballerina properly, if it is too small, slit it a bit on each side. If it is too big, you can try taking one of the creases that point upward and gluing them to the edge of the tutu. Or you can try another snowflake.

My snowflake!

After it was folded the last time.

      
      Now you need to grab that ballerina body, and wiggle it GENTLY through the middle hole of your snowflake. I then had one of the folds hang on her tutu and applied some light glue there, so it did not wiggle so much. VIOLA! You may need to make adjustments to your snowflake if it did not fit properly. And, if you want, you can attach some fishing wire or ribbon to the top of the ballerinas head and hang it. Enjoy! <