An easy kid craft with dramatic effect

You may have encountered this paper snowflake/star at your child's school or in a paperie display window. It's far easier than it might look at a glance, although my 4-yr-old needs a bit of help on this one.

Step 1

Begin with a square sheet of paper of any size. My example is 12"x 12"as that is what my daughter chose to use and it's what we had at the ready. I prefer a smaller size, say 8"x 8".

Step 2

Fold on the diagonal once. And then once again.

Step 3

Hold your folded triangle up with the longest side vertical. Make several cuts (4 is a good number) upward, parallel to the longest side but not all the way through the top edge of the paper.

When unfolded, you should have a diamond-like cut pattern like this.

Step 4

Time to staple, tape or glue. We used staples. Begin with the two innermost, smallest flaps. Staple them together.

Flip it over and staple the next 2 flaps together on the other side.

Flip it back over again and repeat.

When fully stapled it will look like this...

Step 5

You have now completed one arm of your snowflake, or star. Repeat the process with 5 more sheets of square paper of the same size and then you're ready to staple, or otherwise attach, all of the arms together.

Here are 2 arms of my snowflake stapled at one tip (that will be the center of your flake) and on the adjoining sides.

This is what 4 arms looks like...

And finally...

Now hang it for display however you see fit. These are great in groups, as garland or just a single one on it's own. You can imagine how easily gorgeous paper, decorative edge scissors and some glitter can really fancy these babies up. All in natural or white with bold ribbon is lovely. My kids love folding, cutting, stapling, taping so the process AND the end result are good fun.

Enjoy the upcoming weeks during which many of us will have kidlings home from school!