Snowflakes
We don’t have any real snow. Today’s high is expected to be 61 degrees F. We enjoy these warmish winters in California, our afternoons without a jacket. We also long for some honest-to-goodness, stay-home-from-school snowman-making days. Alas, we have to pretend.
I deliberately left some snowflake Christmas ornaments out this year, even though the rest of Christmas is all packed away. They help remind me that the season is beautiful, even amid the mud. Perhaps Mr. Bentley, the snowflake king, inspired me a bit.
I pulled out last year’s paper snowflakes. Lucas was into them last year and helped me make some. He’s got other things on his mind this year, though, (like creating creatures and writing about them).
Asher, on the other hand, thought I was a miracle worker when I cut new snowflakes the other evening and let him carefully unfold them. He was amazed and it was such a joy to see his rosy-cheeked face light up when the snowflake was revealed! Yesterday, after school, we taped the paper flakes up on our windows. Asher helped and thought it looked “AWESOME”!
“Mama, we could make a whole lotta snowflakes!”
“Yes, we can, baby!”
Paper snowflakes look nice silhouetted against an evening sky. (I sometimes cut snowflakes using paper doilies. They make for very lacy edges.
See? You can still have fun with skills learned in primary school: After the kiddos went to bed last night, I busted out some instructions for making five-pointed snowflakes I found on How About Orange. Jessica’s folding instructions are superb and while Ian and I watched Henry Rollins doing stand-up, I cut about five of these star-shaped snowflakes in various sizes.
Here are my five-pointed snowflakes at dawn. Asher was pleased to help stick them to the windows. I think they’re beautiful, if I do say so myself. I don’t know if my dear Mr. Bentley would approve, since this shape of ice crystal is not found in nature, but I think they’re lovely nonetheless. I expect to bust these out again next Christmas, perhaps with some gold foil paper. My thanks to Jessica Jones for the pattern.
Finally, I’m really enjoying this snowflake mobile that our friend Dakini gave us this year. It’s sweet, intricate, and lovely hanging in our kitchen—but mighty hard to photograph!
January 20, 2011 at 1:14 pm
We don’t get much snow up here in Portland either and I also made paper snowflakes! I folded mine into the 6 fold symmetry ones, but those five points are cool! We have to get on the ball and take down all the christmas stuff this weekend, but the snowflakes are staying!
January 22, 2011 at 10:37 pm
I love your snowflake collection. Where I live we have no snow at all (at least not in the ten or so years I’ve been here!) but when winter comes it would be wonderful to enjoy its spirit just as you have here. Very inspiring 🙂
January 25, 2011 at 8:32 pm
Thanks for your kind words, Anna!