Flaky Friday

We are not having a white Christmas here, that's for sure (and it is very rare), but this is a way of compensating: complicated looking (but easy to make) end three dimensional paper snowflakes. These are rather large decorations, and they look especially nice in a window, I think - plus they are the kind of pretty things you may want to leave there, even after Christmas. 

They are printed on heavy paper or card stock, and the trick is all about cutting slits and folding the pieces correctly, and these cool paper sculptures are quite simple to make. 

Everything is explained in this old post from 2016, and there is a photo tutorial as well.

So give them a try - or check out some of the other posts I have done on snowflakes, that are a bit of a thing for me, I guess...

Magic Snowflake Paper Toy

For all the impatient kids who are tired of bending over their their iPads or TV-shows (and perhaps even some of their parents?), I have this little Christmas present. If you have never had a kaleidocycle in your hands, it's about time you did. This is a cunning little paper construction, and easy to build yourself - and I have made you one with festive and seasonal snowflakes. 

All you have to do is download this design, print it on regular paper (perhaps the heavier quality, if you have it), cut, trace and glue. I took a few photos to show you - see the mini-tutorial here. 

It folds endlessly into itself, giving you lots of time to think of something nice and relax for a bit. Think of it as a very low tech fidget spinner, and even something you might decorate the seasonal table with. 

I even made you a primitive GIF to show you how it works.....

Happy Lillejuleaften as we say in Danish - or 'Little Christmas Eve'

THAT window - because it's a tradition!

So, there it is, same as every year - and always something new.
I love it! Such a great tradition. Read more here!

A Christmas card: Snowflakes in New York

Dear readers! I wish you some happy holidays, however you celebrate them and whereever you celebrate them - here it will be done by winding very much down after some busy weeks, no months, for my little family, where work has taken most of our energy. Also some of the energy I usually put into my Christmas DIY postings, I'm afraid - but I hope you have enjoyed the couple I did manage - I have already gotten some very sweet feedback, and that really makes me glad! 

Here is a Christmas card, of sorts. This little story has been on my mind, since I saw a mention somewhere, many many months ago, but it was a winter story - so I forgot about it. And randomly got reminded again via Instagram, the other day! So here goes... 

Everybody knows the iconic Flatiron Building in New York - but you probably have to be around it, at street level, so to speak, to know about the activities in the small glass pavillion (the so-called 'prow') at the bottom. For some time, a local gallery - the Cheryl McGinnis Gallery, has curated art shows in this small glassed-in space. Always colorful, poetic, spectacular and eye catching stuff, it seems. I discovered this via This is Colossal, a rather cool visual arts blog. 

In February 2016, a young New York paper artist, Chelsea Hrynick Browne, made the most fantastic installation of literally thousands of small kirigami papercut snowflakes, suspended on lengths of nylon string - to make the space look like a rainbow colored blizzard was happening. 

Here it is, in an actual blizzard - photographed by Michele Palazzo (more photo credits at the end).

I do have a soft spot for anyone who gets so obsessive with their scissors, as you may know. Check some of my other posts tagged paper artist!

I also love snowflakes in windows (discover some of my earlier mentions here!)

Chelsea Hrynick Browne is interested in mathematics, patterns and repetitions - and I can't imagine how long it takes her to complete a task like this. All the snowflakes you see, are double layered (apparently laminated in some kind of thin, shimmery film), and very detailed. They are all cut by hand, by her.

Here she is, at work, hanging the installation - and a couple of images from her Instagram shows some more detail of how her square motifs typically look.  

Photos: Street evening photos from: untappedcities.com.

Portrait and details from Chelsea Hrynick Brown's Instagram
Detail of flake hanging in window from: fibonaccisusan.com

Just for fun, I'll wrap up this post with a nice old photo: the Flatiron Building with it's distinctive prow, just seen at street level, at the 'point' af the building - looking probably much as it does today. 

Sharp Looking Snowflakes

Here is my second paper project for this Christmas season.

These crisp and sharp looking snowflakes are very 3D and almost architectural - and, as usual, far simpler to make than they look. They are made from six slitted and folded strips of heavy paper or card stock - I had to experiment a bit before they became okay, meaning sturdy and stiff enough to stay in shape.

I made a couple of attempts in regular printing paper, and they got all saggy and floppy. You'll need 200 or 220 gram card stock, the kind you can use in the printer (= hobbykarton). You also need to use a knife and a cutting mat - but that's as complicated as it gets. The rest is super simple. See instructions further down...

I love the intricate three dimensional quality of these - and all they really are, are some folded strips of paper and a bit of glue! They look great in a window, where they can twirl around a bit.

Get the template right here - one print, six strips, will make one rather large snowflake. 

Please make sure to print these on heavy paper or card stock, and follow my advice about scoring or tracing the dotted lines in the design, something I often explain and mark out on my templates.

The idea of tracing the folding lines is simple: make a slight dent in the paper, and it will fold easily, in sharp lines and precisely. And taking a minute to trace or score these lines, will really help you in the folding.

Do like this:

Cut out your six strips very precisely, cut the slits as marked, and score / trace the dotted lines a bit - use the tip of a needle or (careful not to cut) use your knife. 

Start working the slits upwards and downwards like shown - a bit like a pop-up-card.

 The six strips should eventually look like this......

As you can see, the snowflake is beginning to happen... 

Glue the bits together, two and two, let them dry for a second, and then finish up, by assembling the three units. 

Punch a hole and hang your festive flake!

Those days in between

Christmas is more or less over, although there is still a certain holiday slacker atmosphere about our days, and now we are frantically Googling hors d'oeuvres recipes, as we are going to our usual everybody-bring-a-course dinnerparty on New Years Eve.

Yesterday I took a different route grocery shopping than my usual one, and remembered one thing I had completely forgotten: my friends down the road with the snowflake window - how did it look this year? Unbelievably, as they live about a five minute walk from us, I hadn't been down that end of the main street in our neighborhood all December.

But there it was, pretty as always!

(Readers of this blog will know that I have posted this window several times before. Every year, early in the Christmas season, my frinds have a party, where everyone is asked to cut white tissue paper snow flakes, while drinking glögg and eating sweets. They don't stop until the window is full, and I LOVE that window. Some years they jazz it up with a few red flakes, and last year - I think it was? - the flakes were square. But it always snows in Stine and Erik's dining room window!)

While longing for snow and some proper winter

It is so wet, grey and damp here in Copenhagen. I normally try to see the beauty of all kinds of weather, but it's a bit of a far stretch, these days. The other day I came across a bit of snow, while browsing away in my coffee break. Oh, man, do I long for some actual snow, and perhaps a bit of sunshine! But in the meantime, one might enjoy looking at these fragile wonders.

More than two years ago I wrote about some fantastic snowflake photographers, so I felt like including this guy in the company. His name is Alexey Kljatov, and he lives in Moscow - a nice place to live, if you love doing technically amazing close up photographs of snowflakes, I guess. 

All the photos here, are taken on the balcony outside his Moscow flat - and for the nerds, he explains his work method and his equipment in detail, at his website (where you can see even more snowflakes)!

I just think they are almost unreal and very beautiful.

Hellig Tre Konger / Epiphany / Twelfth Night - and goodbye tree!

Today is the very very last day of christmas - Epiphany or Twelfth Night - and in Denmark we mostly remember this date because it is, traditionally, the last day you are allowed to enjoy your christmas tinsel. On January 6th it has to go! I guess lots of people get rid of it much sooner, and we too put away most of the elves and advent candlesticks and such, but I tend to stick with the tree - if we have one - to about this day. We always buy one just a few days before Christmas Eve, and christmas trees are ridiculously expensive if you life in a big city in Denmark (and cost next to nothing if you live in the countryside) so I cannot bring myself to throw it away. Plus, of course, it looks festive.

This is what ours looked like about three days ago....

It got stuck in a strange and messy corner this year, and does its very best to cover up our semi stowed away CD collection. 

Yesterday it got to the turning point of its lush looking greenness - it just kinda lost all of its needles at once, so today it just looks sad and creepy. I de-tinselled it this morning, and when my son is back from kindergarten, he gets to see it thrown over the balcony all of four stories down! Mustn't miss that.

Thank you ALL for following my blog this December, there were visitors from the most exotic places, from Egypt to Japan, hope you will check it out again. I just started on Pinterest, so you can find me there as well. Not much happening there yet, I have to say, but it will grow, I'm guessing.

The very last christmassy thing I will do this time is to show you this years edition of My Favourite Window!

I have shown you this window the two previous seasons - see the one from 2011, and see the one from 2012 - and this year my friends down the street, came up with yet another twist on their beautiful annual holiday paper snowflake window.

And it looks lovely again this year. With this I will wish you all a Happy New Year!

Flaky windows for the very lazy

The snowflake window, which I shared with you the other day here, and showed you last year here, demands that you put in some serious hours. But I found some alternative solutions for the lazy.
And it is so very, very okay to be lazy.

The first quick fix is from a Danish magazine, Alt For Damerne, using paper doilies.
The one in the middle is from Dutch sticker company Studio Haikje.
Tha last one I borrowed from the Danish blog Piger i Provinsen - the one with the masking tape.
I have seen this star in many versions around town, and I have seen fantastic, entire windows done
up in the most stylish way - very islamic architecture, very clever! See for yourself, here...

Making a quick christmas window is easy peasy. Nothing to it, as you can see.
I could easily see this tape idea developed a bit, with the zigzag scissors from the sewing drawer,
or simply cropping the ends diagonally, which would make the design even more starry or flaky.

And then I stumbled upon the Swiss designer Claudia Caviezel, a lady who has taken this media
to a completely new level.

She designed these patterns for room dividers in the Zürich airport business lounge.
And they are - masking tape stuck directly on enormous, layered glass panels! Cool.

My favourite window

Late yesterday afternoon I took my small camera with me out jogging, in order to document
if my favourite window in the local neighbourhood has gone into christmas mode. I have been
following it patiently, but missed it the last week or so - but I was not dissapointed yesterday.

And I love that they have added red and purple this year, that looks great, usually it's all white.
Really grainy and poor photos, but daylight is almost non existant here in Cph at the moment.

So, as I wrote last year, they do this every year - and it is a seasonal installation that gets completely refreshed every year, so you must imagine that all these exquisite tissue flakes simply gets scrubbed
down some time after New Year in a frenzy of window cleaning.
I like that, somehow. It adds to the elegance of the whole thing.

And since I had my camera with me, I tried to take some evening pictures of all the lights in the
windows - all the stars and fairylights people put up, here in the gloomy Scandinavian winter.
It proved almost impossible, with the small camera, and they got really blurry. But I kind of decided
that I liked that, since it was the greyest of foggy days, so I exaggerated a bit and ended up with these....

They captured the day perfectly.

Flaky - part three

Just a few blocks from here, some of my friends live.
And every year at christmas, they have this fine tradition: on one of the early weekends in the season
they get together and make paper flakes for this fantastic themed window. Every year it is the same -
and, of course, every year it is different!
So here it is - Stine and Eriks delicate tissue paper snowflake extravaganza!
To me, it is one of the more important local signs of christmas - and I keep an eager eye out for the
flakes from late november / early december - and if I think they are the least bit late, I will send them impatient emails.

It took me a while to do this post, as this window is so hard to show properly in a photograph....
Originally I wanted to take a picture at night, but that proved impossible, as reflections of the street
lights were all you could see. But I hope you get just hint of the fragile prettiness here....

Going flaky - part two

Yesterday was a yet another crazy workday, with very little time for blogging and making christmas niceness. I think you deserve some compensation.
Today I give you a nice little sheet of snowflake themed hearts. Oh yes. Flakes again.

Here is a little teaser - download the whole thing here.

2021: I have a new location for my downloads: please go here (A) and here (B) 

What's with the flakes?
Must be because I am longing for this:

And - most especially - for this (even my old skis have flakes on them, see?):

Going all flaky on you

Apropos snowflakes, I have to show you these breathtakingly beautiful photographs by the japanese photographer Yuji Obata.

They are from a series called 'Hommage to Wilson A. Bentley', 2005-2006 - honoring the pioneer of snowflake photography (born in rural Vermont in 1880), who took thousands of photos of snowflakes
in his lifetime.
 
Inspired by a Breughel winter paiting, in 2003 Obata went to Hokkaido, one of Japans northernmost islands, to photograph speed skaters and other wintery scenes, and got particularly involved in trying
to capture the snow itself.

Take a look at his fine book 'Wintertale' right here:
http://www.photoeye.com/BookteaseLight/bookteaselight.cfm?catalog=ZD657&image=1


Had to google a bit more about old Wilson A. Bentley. And here he is.

Wilsons interest in snowflakes started in early boyhood when his mother gave him a microscope.
It took him years of experimenting with camera equipment and general inventiveness, before he
actually managed to capture the evasive flakes.
His approach was scientific and systematic. Apparently he numbered his flakes. Patient guy.

I found this lovely montage of the flakes 889-900 - and a large single perfect snowflake.
As they all are, of course.