12.18.2010

*Rustic Snowflake Tutorial*

I have a few requests for a "How-To" on the Rustic Snowflakes I posted a couple of days ago so here it is! This DIY Craft is great because there is no "correct" way of doing it--you can add what you want as you go! The Rustic Snowflakes can be as simple or complex as YOU want! I enjoyed making all 8 of mine completely different to add more visual interest and to keep my creativity flowing! 



Materials needed to create Rustic Snowflakes:
     - Twigs
     - Hot Glue Sticks
     - Hot Glue Gun
     - Pruning shears or really sharp scissors

Materials needed to make your Rustic Snowflakes BEAUTIFUL:
(This part can be totally up to you--it's your craft so make it your way! I am simply suggesting the things I used, feel free to copy or change it up!)
     - Pine needles (Michaels $4.00..Also used to make this)
     - Pine needles with snow
     - Button Stickers (Michaels $1.50 each)
     - Berries 
     - Twine
     - Felt 

I used scraps of twine, felt, berries, and the snow covered pine needles I currently had in my "craft corner" of our spare bedroom. Check out your own collection and see what you have before making any purchases!

Making Your Rustic Snowflake

1. Gather all of your materials.
2. Cut twigs to your desired size, cutting four long and four short.
3. Lay out your twigs in the design of your choice.
4. Cut a small square out of your felt scrap.
5. Hot glue your four longer twigs onto the felt square like shown:
6. Hot glue your four shorter twigs onto the felt square in the four remaining 
     corners. 
    Hint: As you are gluing your twigs onto the felt  
    square, make sure you are putting the prettiest side
    of the twig facing you.
7. This step is the beginning of making your snowflakes look pretty :) Begin 
     hot gluing your pine needles into place.
8. Hot glue your snow covered pine needles wherever your heart desires!
9. Continue jazzing it up with button stickers and a bow made out of twine!
Although it appears finished, I am going to take it a few steps further to show you how I made my other snowflakes with a little more detail :)

10. To add extra detail to your twigs (for more of the snowflake appearance),
       find a thinner stick and cut into very tiny pieces. 
       Hint: Cut one side on an angle as shown:
11. Hot glue your smaller, thinner pieces onto your twigs and create your very
       own snowflake design. The angled side gets glued onto the twig and fits 
       perfectly, making it very easy!
12. Continue hot gluing your smaller pieces of twig until you are satisfied 
       with your design. For this particular snowflake, I was not thrilled with 
       where the design was going, so I simply added more until I liked it! 
13. If you do not want to cut the angled pieces of twig, you can cut straight
        edges to create this effect:
When you are pleased with your work, show it off :) 
Some ideas how to use your Rustic Snowflakes:
     - Attach ribbon or fishing line to make ornaments (great gift idea for loved 
       ones!)
     - Hot glue snowflakes onto red ribbon evenly spaced, to create a banner for
       displaying your Christmas cards
     - Hot glue snowflakes unto a "Merry Christmas" banner you already own 
     - Using ribbon or fishing line, hang snowflakes from chandelier or other 
       light fixture in your home
     - Hang, using thumb tacks or sticky tack, on your wall as art! (Adam's 
       idea!)

(Fishing line works great because it is sturdy and becomes invisible!..Can you tell I grew up with a fisherman as a father?!)

Here are my Rustic Snowflakes displayed in our home at the top of our staircase (Thank you Adam for this great idea!):
Fun centerpiece I threw together with my scraps!
Thank you for reading, happy crafting :)

58 comments:

  1. Are you kidding me girl? You are amazing! You could use those as gifts! When I finally have my own place again, feel free to decorate it. :)

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  2. Katie! It's Aimee (Tome) Reif! I love your blog! Your crafts are incredible...for now my crafty side will have to live vicariously through you! hehe. Stop by my site sometime!

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  3. Yep....totally love these. www.thrifty101.blogspot.com Thanks for sharing! :)

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  4. That is about the cutest thing I've seen!

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  5. beautiful! I can't wait to make these! This year we are doing 2 trees. I am going to do a tiny one in our room with a few of our personal favorite decorations and the main tree downstairs is going to be decorated with white lights, dried oranges, cinnamon and now these snowflakes!!

    We live in an old old farmhouse so I think these would fit it perfect!

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  6. I just discovered your blog via the Design DNA blog, and I'm so glad I did. I love these and am totally going to make them for our cabin. Thanks!

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  7. I make an ornament for all the ladies in the family every year, and I think I found the perfect one for this year! Thank you for your inspiration!

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  8. That is completely charming. Great job!!

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  9. These are great! I am making mine with cinnamon sticks instead of twigs....then they will smell good too! Thanks for the great idea! Happy Holidays!

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    1. ooohh!!! Cinnamon sticks!! What a great idea!!! =)

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  10. These snowflakes are simply elegant and do look easy to make. Thank you for your inspiration!

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  11. Absolutely amazing!!!!!! Thank you so much for sharing this! Can't wait to make some!

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  12. So great! I have oone one of my trees in a beautiful rustic theme several times and these would be so pretty on it. One year I wrapped all the gifts in brown craft paper and calico plaid for the ribbon with fresh pine greens, mini pinecones and things for the finishing touches. These ornaments would have been the perfect keepsake to add to the package.

    Have a wonderful weekend…Tracy @ Cotton Pickin Cute

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  13. Love this idea! Great way to use up the twigs from my oak tree.

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  14. I'm trying to start a tradition of 'memento' Christmas ornaments from our travels. We just spent the weekend at a wonderful regional park and I was wondering how I could incorporate the twigs into a Christmas decoration. Here it is! Fabulous idea! I just wish I'd brought some twigs back with me.

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  15. These are amazing! Thank you for sharing with such detail and pictures for references!! I can't waut to get started on these for my own home!

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  16. Hi Katie,

    I'm one of the editors at http://www.allfreechristmascrafts.com/ and I just wanted to reach out to you, as I've noticed that one of our editors is interested in featuring your projects on our site. I think they're great projects that our readers will just love to make. This will easily bring traffic to your site and allow others to see what's new on your site.

    We would love to add more of your projects to our site, so feel free to let us know as you add or create projects. We are always looking for Christmas projects so if you have any of these please feel free to send them my way or let us know if you prefer we not link to you. We also feature projects from our website on our blogs, eBooks and e-mail newsletters.

    Your projects are great and we know our readers will enjoy them. With that said, can we have permission to link to any project on your site as well as use the image? We will credit you, of course.

    Thanks!

    Kathryn (you can contact me at kwright@primecp.com)

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  17. Thank you for sharing these! I made them for Christmas last year as gifts and they are so wonderful that I definitely plan on making them again this year.

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  18. Thank you for sharing this tutorial. I love the rustic snowflakes. They are perfect for a cabin or lodge decor. :)

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  19. Thank you so much for sharing this its SNOW AMAZING........ takes me back home to the country... Rose

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  20. I absolutely love these & will definitely be making some! My son & I always try to make a few ornaments every year to put on our tree, attach to presents or if we think they're nice enough, give as gifts. I have PLENTY of sticks and twigs in my yard & these will be very inexpensive which is exactly what I need right now! Also, how did you put them on the wall without leaving marks behind when they come down? Poster putty maybe? They'd look great around the mirror in my entry, too!!

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  21. I love this!!! Guess I will have to take a walk in the woods with the dog to pick up some twigs, pine needles and pine cones! TFS

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  22. I'd LOVE to make some of these this Christmas season! Thanks for the tutorial and for sharing your fun idea!

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  23. tinascott1234@gmail.comNovember 28, 2012 at 10:37 PM

    very special crafts for kids too

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  24. Beautiful. Well done. You have inspired me

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  25. These are amazing.. We'll be gathering sticks tomorrow! Thank you!

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  26. Great idea!! Thanks and BRAVO!!!

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  27. If you attach fishing line or a ribbon, where do you attach it to?

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  28. Awesome I cant wait to make these

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  29. This is great, thanks for sharing, can't wait to make them for Christmas gifts and
    decorations for the tree. Love it!!!

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  30. I am very into these ornaments and the great tutorial you've posted! Love your pinspirational project! I have pinned this and also blogged it for my Walkabout Wednesday series. Twiggy Inspirations post here
    Hugs, Antonella :-)

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  31. Beautiful... thanks :-)

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  32. My sister and I made these on a Sunday afternoon. We think they are absolutely adorable. We did make a slight change. Instead of felt for the back, we used a small square of cardboard. It was sturdier and held the sticks in place better. We also made the north and south branch one piece for stability and glued the rest up next to it. We plan on getting together to make more. THANKS FOR THE IDEA!!

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  33. I luv it...i live in a wooded area where twigs are a plenty....going there now...ok where did i put my glue gun...lol

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  34. I luv it...i live in a wooded area where twigs are a plenty....going there now...ok where did i put my glue gun...lol

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  35. Thank you for sharing this with all of us! Love them!

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  36. These are so cute. We have a tradition in our family where every year we either buy or make an ornament for each of our kids...when they move out & have their own Christmas tree, they will have all of their ornaments from years past as a start. This year, they will be getting snowflake ornaments! Thanks for the inspiration!

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  37. My children and I always made ornaments for Christmas. Now they are grown and I have grandchildren... this is definitely one we will be making this Christmas. Gathering twigs tomorrow. Can't wait to see how they turn out. May have to make them every year....Thanks for sharing

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  38. I absolutely LOVE these and have just started making them for this year. I'm SO pleased with the results!! Thank you for sharing with us!!

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  39. These are really cute. I was looking for rustic ideas to use for the Senior Center Main tree next year and I think this is one I will do. We have a tree decorating contest each year and I have always done the main tree that everyone sees when they first walk in. This past year I did it in all red, Christmas green and gold with 100 different hand made ribbon angels along with thew ornaments for our theme. I do a different theme each year . Glad I ran across this ornament. Thanks.

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  40. I love this idea! I'm saving it to my favorites!! Love snowflake decor then I can have it out the whole winter!

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  41. Starting on these today! I have a huge tree and some bored kids (already) we are going twig hunting right now!

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  42. I just love this craft and I have tried to research all of the necessary pieces needed to complete it, but I cannot find a place to purchase the branches. Any suggestions??

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  43. lOVE THIS! I HAVE AN OVERLOAD OF PINE CONES...CAN'T WAIT TO GET STARTED THIS YEAR............PJB

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  44. Do you think you could use cinnamon sticks instead of twigs?

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  45. AMAZING AND MANY USES SUCH AS USING THE ORNAMENT ON A CHRISTMAS GIFT RATHER THAN BOW

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  46. This is a beautiful idea. I did this as a craft with my kids. The snowflakes are just perfect for a rustictalk Christmas theme. Thanks for the DIY.

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  47. How about spray painting them white?

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  48. hi thanks for the inspiration .. here is my version and i linked to your tutorial .. hope that is ok
    https://dk.pinterest.com/pin/543880092479658814/

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