Make a pipe cleaner snowflake

Materials

  • 3 pipe cleaners the same length, approximately 15cm

  • 42 pony beads

  • Some thin ribbon or thread for hanging

Step one

Start off by laying 2 of the pipe cleaners together to form a cross. If you got your pipe cleaners from a Violet Sky Creative snowflake kit, you will need to straighten them up first. Twist them together to secure; it doesn’t matter how you do this, as long as it feels secure. I folded the left side over to the right and then folded the right side over to the left.

Step two

Rotate the cross in front of you so it looks like an “x”. Add the third pipe cleaner in the middle of the “x” and twist in to place by taking the top stem to the bottom and the bottom stem to the top. You should now have a shape that looks like a snowflake with 6 stems. You can wiggle the stems about to make them more evenly spaced.

Step three

Now you are ready to add your beads! It doesn’t matter if you choose to thread your beads on to the pipe cleaners in a pattern or if you do it randomly. Either way, you will end up with something wonderfully unique, just like you!

(If you bought a snowflake kit from Violet Sky Creative, your beads should be tied up nicely on a piece of string. I recommend cutting the string over a bowl to catch the beads!)

You will be able to fit 7 pony beads on each stem. You will need to leave a little bit of pipe cleaner poking out at the end of the beads. When you have threaded on your last bead of each stem, fold the tip of the pipe cleaner back on itself and tuck it into the last bead a little bit, if you can. Don’t squeeze it too tight. This will stop the pipe cleaner from poking you (ouch!) and should stop the beads from falling off.

Step four

Once you have threaded your last bead on the last stem, before you fold over the tip of the pipe cleaner, tuck the loop of your thread or ribbon underneath.

You are now ready to hang your snowflake! It will look lovely and sparkly on your Christmas tree, or hanging in a sunny window. You could even give it as a gift to someone special.

P.S.

If you purchased a snowflake kit from Violet Sky Creative you may have some spare beads, depending on how well I counted them and how many have gone off on a little adventure under the sofa…why don’t you see if you can put them to use in another crafty project!