I’m sorry we haven’t been updating the site much recently. We haven’t done very much that’s post worthy since Halloween.
It is the time of year where we start preparing for Christmas, though. Since we started doing an annual video, preparation for Christmas starts around the first of October, when I drag out the music and start searching for the right song to accompany the video. So far, I’ve found a few songs that might be OK, but nothing that has knocked my socks off yet.
Cece and I had a kirigami (cut paper patterns like snowflakes) fest over the weekend that worked out pretty well. I bought a book from Barnes & Noble with some simple patterns to cut and since Cece and I were home all alone on Saturday afternoon, we decided to try it.
We made some interesting stuff. Airplane snowflakes, Elephants, Celtic crosses and so forth. Cece had a little trouble at first cutting the patterns, but once she got started (and I started drawing the patterns on the paper for her), it was hard to get her to stop.
(All of these were made by Cece except the blue cross and the red and white snowflake, which I made.)
The most interesting thing we made was a simple 3D snowflake made from 6 pieces of 6″x6″ origami paper. The result was so impressive that Sadie and Carissa had to make their own on Sunday and Sandi wants to string some across the kitchen as a decoration this year. I was going to post some pictures, but the girls took them to give to their teachers this morning. I’ll put some up after we make the next batch.
By the way, I found this interesting site while researching kirigami on the web.
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As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we found a simple pattern to make 3D snowflakes. We made several, and the girls gave them all away to their teachers. They’ve been a real hit at the schools, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of them being made by local school children in the near future.
We decided to make a few more to use as Christmas decorations and hang them in the house for our Gingerbread party tomorrow.
Here’s what they look like:
We also made one by using two different types of wrapping paper an interweving them. It looks really neat, but the wrapping paper we chose isn’t stiff enough to hang up, so it’s been relegated to being a table decoration. 
Update: If you are interested in making your own snowflake, you can get the pattern and instructions here: The 3D Kirigami Snowflake Pattern
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Note: If you find this pattern interesting, I recommend that you buy the book Kirigami by Jeffrey Rutzky from Barnes and Noble. It’s our original source for this project and an excellent introduction to an interesting craft that is tons of fun to do as a family.
I’ve taken the 3D kirigami snowflake pattern that we’ve talked about a few times on our blog, and I’ve created a pattern that can be used in a Cricut expression to make the cuts needed for the pattern out of 12×12 sheets of scrapbook paper. Below, I’ve posted the pattern so that you can make the snowflakes yourself if you have a Cricut Expression and Sure-Cuts-A-Lot.
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