Customer Reviews

Snowflakes for all Seasons

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For a number of years now, we've had a tradition in our home. As nights lengthen and Christmas approaches, we start folding pieces of printer paper and cutting out snowflakes, which we then tape to windows, the refrigerator, etc. When my wife brought home his book, I figured that it had little to say to me. Well, I was wrong!

The book starts out with a quick one-page hint page, which actually had some really good suggestions. The book then launches into snowflakes for all seasons (from New Years through Independence Day and on to Christmas). Though you wouldn't want many on these off-snowflake-season designs, when done with colored paper, they do make lovely decorations, ones that the kids will love making. Interestingly, the back cover has a thumbnail picture of all of the snowflakes (complete with page numbers), all made with different colored paper--seeing that alone will change your view of snowflakes!

So, please let my family recommend that you buy this wonderful (and reasonably priced) little resource for your family fun. It's a great book!

The snowflakes look difficult to make, but are fairly easy to do with small sharp scissors. It is fun to do each season's snowflakes in a different color of paper and hang on the windows, or refrigerators, walls, doors, etc. I gave a book to the teachers at our school and they loved using it for themselves and for the children.

I got this book to use as a means of decorating gifts with atractive but inexpensive ornaments. At first I was unsure if the project would succeed, because the snowflakes seemed so elaborate. I was amazed at the effects that I could produced with very little effort. Each of the designs is based on a simple folding technique that reduces the actual cutting to a minimum. When you see the illustrations it becomes instantly "doable" in your mind. I ran into some difficulty due to the choice of my experiment paper: it was too thick and unyielding when folded as needed. A lighter weight paper cured the problem. Origami paper is beautiful, light enough, and already comes in the required square shape. I also found that, as the author stresses, a very sharp pair of sissors is indespensible to keep the cuts uniform through the entire stack of folds and to achieve the sharp corners and turns required for some of the designs. I found a very sharp pair of surgical scissors did a wonderful job, though the handles were a little hard on the fingers, especially the thumb, when cutting through the thicknesses required.

The snowflakes are quite interesting and very different from other snowflake books that I've come across. I did find it difficult however, to copy the snowflakes onto paper where students were able to cut them into the respective snowflakes. Also it made it difficult to utilize the book, because the snowflake shapes designed to be the pattern were on every consecutive page, making it difficult to copy them. I thought the book was going to be somewhat easier to utilize than it is; one should be able to easily transfer the snowflake pattern onto a paper and go from there.

"You can use the same patterns many times. Photocopy or trace the patterns rather than cutting them out so you can use them many times. You can also photocopy your patterns smaller or larger so you have a variety of snowflake sizes for decorating."

Snowflakes for all seasons is a pattern book to delight the imagination and give children a fun project for the holiday season or any holiday during the year. The snowflakes are not only for Christmas, but also include:

New Year's
Valentine's Day
President's Day
St. Patrick's Day
Spring
Easter
Summer
Fourth of July
Autumn
Halloween
Thanksgiving
Christmas
Winter
Fun Favorites - Teddy Bears, Football, Ferris Wheel, Pinwheel and many more...

To create each snowflake you follow the folding instructions and then use the pattern at the base of any page where you find a snowflake you love.

Snowflakes can be used to decorate presents, packages, scrapbooks, invitations, Christmas trees or even the holiday table any time of the year. Buy a few glue glitter pens to decorate the snowflakes or glue and glitter to match any seasonal theme.

~The Rebecca Review

At some point in our childhood almost everyone has probably folded paper and cut snips out of it to form a snowflake pattern. Now this snowflake tradition is no longer just for the winter. Following Cindy Hingham's specific folding pattern you can copy one of the 72 stencils in the book onto the paper, cut them out and end up with a snowflake pattern for any holiday. The patterns include hourglasses for New Years, hearts, arrows, cupids, and lips for Valentines, shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day, bunnies, lilies and baby chicks for Easter, Liberty Bells, and stars for the Fourth of July, pumpkins, black cats, owls, and ghosts for Halloween, Christmas bells, and snowmen for Christmas, teddy bears, dogs, cats, butterflies, love birds, and many others. Snowflakes for All Seasons is a very creative and fun craft book for children and adults and is very highly recommended.

I have a previous version of this book which seems to be the same except for the cover. I love it and use it year round. I've been cutting snowflakes this way freehand for about 30 years but it's so nice to have patterns. You really need manicure scissors for some of the patterns but not all.

The best way to use this book is to copy the pages you need, cut out the triangular pattern from the copy, fold up your paper and then tape the pattern to the top using a very small piece of tape. Then cut around the white parts and you are set.

As a biophysical geographer and GLOBE trainer I work with snow. I am always looking for ways for student scientists to do hands-on, minds-on science. Higham provides 64 paper snowflakes. As one very bright 10-year told me, "Snow is dead clouds."

Snow crystals are the most unstable substance on earth - always changing while forming, falling and on the ground until the spring melt. These are imaginative, fun, snap shots of snow crystals.

Some of Higham's designs are a stretch (Halloween, 4th of July), but anything that helps gain a greater understanding of snow, and gets away from the stereotypical six-point star snow "flake" and more toward the vast diversity of snow crystals is a plus. I use Higham's book with my student scientists at the K-12 and university level.

When students work through Higham's designs they are then ready for more complex, multidimensional true snow crystals.

My kids had so much fun cutting these out! The designs were easy enough for them to do on their own. The hearts patterns made great valentines!

I have truly enjoyed sharing this book with my adult kids and my grandkids. Everybody gets into the action