Let It Blow

Now that we've finally escaped the polar express vortex, and the snow (at least here in St. Louis) has melted, it seemed like a fine time to commemorate the recent blizzard with some paper snowflakes.  I remember vaguely creating this staple of craftery back in grade school, and knew it would require folding some paper and making some precise scissor cuts.  The thing is I have no memory of how to fold the paper and where to cut.  I thought it would make for a much more interesting post by chronicling my guesses at this process.  And since no two snowflakes are the same, I couldn't fail I did my best to resemble something snowflake-ish.

My first attempt I folded my paper slightly and made cuts into the paper in shapes I thought might come across as a version of frozen sky precipitation.  Obviously, this did not work.  I cut a vague shape out of the paper without completing any cuts, as to avoid catastrophic results.  Calling this haphazard and unfinished try a snowflake is comparable to telling old friends at your high school reunion you are currently applying to med schools when all you have done, medically speaking, recently was look up hangover cures on Webmd.  This attempt shows that I had absolutely no confidence or belief that I could make a craft routinely accomplished by toddlers.  Lesson Learned from first attempt: Finish what you started, whether that's paper snowflakes, a real estate license test, or a booze cruise tour of your local water treatment facility.

I folded this one differently and with new cuts too!  Annnnnnnd it still looks awful.  Apparently my brain thought cutting arrowheads pointing a couple different ways = snowflake.  Lesson Learned from second attempt: Arrows don't always point in the right direction.  This can be confirmed by any ghost who met their demise in a bow and arrow duel, assuming they enjoyed their actual life over the specter life (note to self- The Specter Life would be a great reality show if I could get an odd couple of some all star ghosts.  I'm looking at you JFK and Dom DeLuise..).

Oh look this one turned out like a terrible, terrible mask that I clearly enjoyed and allowed to distract me too much.  Lesson Learned from attempt three: You should probably give up annnn-SQUIRREL.

I just balled this one up like a snowball, made a few cuts, and called it a day.  The unfolding and reveal showed that a ball of paper doesn't exactly mean snowball which in turn doesn't mean snowflake.  Lessons Learned from attempt four: The meaning of prefixes and the transitive property!  If A doesn't equal B, and B doesn't equal C, maybe you should just go sit and the corner and cry until you can devise a way to complete such a simple craft, and then just look up some pointers online anyways.

Make room the Louvre, my new work of art is on its way!

It's unfair to measure my snowflake against the grade A flakes you can find on the internet.  Standing on it's own, mine kind of looks how it's supposed to - it's fun, it's cute, and it probably even looks good in glasses and suspenders.  But if you pull back and compare it to these snowflake pics I found online, you see that my attempt is the Urkel and these online submissions are the Brad Pitt - George Clooney - Ryan Gosling super love child combo of snowflakes.

It's not even fair looking at these.  No toddler created these, and that should be my fair competition in this craft.

Songs for Making Sweet Sweet Snow 
- "Family Matters Theme Song" - Family Matters (this can be easily confused or substituted with any of    the other T.G.I.F. lineup songs)
- "Cold As Ice" - Foreigner
- "Hazy Shade Of Winter" - Simon & Garfunkel
- "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" - Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band