The art of carving patterns on paper originated in the middle of the 19th century, when paper became available as a raw material. Household items were decorated with openwork paper sheets, windows were pasted over instead of curtains. Over time, textiles replaced paper, but the tradition of decorating the room with paper snowflakes for the New Year remained.
Light delicate paper snowflakes create a festive atmosphere, and, along with a Christmas tree, are a symbol of the New Year. Hanging compositions are made of them, they are used to decorate a forest beauty, windows, a child's costume.
Of course, there is nothing difficult about making snowflakes yourself. For their manufacture, both thin and thick paper, napkins, foil are suitable. You need to take a rectangular or square sheet, fold it several times and cut out the pattern.
Snowflakes can be round, four-, six-, octagonal. It depends on how you fold the sheet. The easiest way: fold the square diagonally, bend the resulting triangle two times in half. From such a blank, you will get a snowflake with four faces. To get an eight-pointed snowflake, you need to bend the workpiece again and cut off the tail, it is not needed.
For a six-pointed snowflake, fold the rectangular sheet in half. From the middle of the fold line to the corners of the base, mentally draw lines and bend the corners along them. Once again, fold the workpiece in half and trim off the excess.
You can use templates to create interesting snowflakes with outlandish patterns. Especially if you are doing it for the first time. Attach the stencil to the workpiece, trace along the contour and cut out.
You can make beautiful paper snowflakes without a template. Cut rays, circles, cloves and other curls on one and the other side of the workpiece of different sizes. Anything that fantasy tells. The principle is that the less paper is left, the more delicate the snowflake will turn out. There are no standards, and the beauty is that each snowflake is unique and inimitable.
