When I was a kid, scissors were the coolest thing ever. I would, literally, spend hours during the holidays cutting out snowflake after snowflake in an effort to coat every inch of window space in our house with the white stuff.

Growing up in the Rocky Mountains, snow for the holidays was never an issue. But, the intricate work of cutting out lovely snowflakes meant one thing – dedicated time with the coolness that was scissors.

My obsession started with my grandmother, who – every year – would pull out her collection of Polish paper art that was, in my estimation, spectacular. So precise and detailed, a few pieces still hang in our house today.

So, when the tiny person began asking for some time on her own with the scissors this year, I could hardly say no.

Sharp tools and a 3-year-old can be a rather painful combination, and I don’t really recall getting into the actual snowflake making thing myself until elementary school.

But, I couldn’t resist a recent round of showing her a bit of the paper work that fascinated me as a kid while she cut a few bits of paper here and there.

Then, we could get down to her kind of fun – iron the snow flakes and throw some glitter on.

Mix in there wax paper, one of my new faves in terms of binding tools in the kid crafting universe. Easy to use, with funky, vintage results, it never gets the kaibosh from the crowd around here. You have the perfect early holiday season decorating scenario.

I will admit that the snowflakes were 70 percent mom and dad, OK – 85 percent us and some glitter sprinkling and “too close to the iron, back up!” moments for her.

But, after we traded our Fall leaf hangings in the kitchen window for these beauties, we no longer wished for snow outside – we had our own sparkling right in front of us.

Here’s what you need:

- Wax Paper
– Printer paper or other light coloured paper
– Sparkles or crayon shavings (I recommend very fine sparkles)
– A warm iron
– Scissors
– A circle (bowl, cup, stencil) for tracing out snowflake circles
– Raffia, string or other things to hang them with
– A small hole punch

Directions:

1. Take the white paper and fold it into four. Use a glass, bowl or other circle to trace one out with and then cut it out, leaving you with four snowflakes per sheet. For larger snowflakes, fold fewer times and use a bigger circle.

2. Cut out your snowflakes. Don’t be shy, no two snowflakes look alike:)

3. Take two sheets of wax paper. Place your snowflake (or several with a big sheet) on the bottom piece. Make sure the wax side is facing up. Place the second sheet, wax side down (so that both wax sides will eventually melt together) over the top.

4. Take fine sparkles and sprinkle them in the middle of each flake taking care to not get them close to the edges (sparkles don’t melt, if they get near the edges, the wax paper won’t seal properly). Or, take crayon shavings and sprinkle them all over for a cool stained-glass look (they melt, it’s awesome)

5. Cut them out, using a wide edge around the flakes for maximum wax paper stick. Take the hole punch and make a hole at the top, pull the raffia or string through and hang them up.

Ah, the beginnings of a very festive holiday home.