Winter is here! I suppose in other places around the United States and the world, many people are enjoying snow and the activities that go with it. I live in the New Orleans area, and snow is a rarity here. I can remember almost down to the date the times it snowed. There was Christmas Day in 2004, winter 2008, and December 8, 2017. Each time was magical and exciting.
Snow is fascinating! It's amazing to think that no snowflakes are alike. That was the inspiration for this craft. Many times, people seem to assume that our babies who have died are replaceable, but we all know this isn't true. Just as our living family members are one-of-a-kind, so are our deceased babies.
This craft can be done with simple materials and is fun to personalize. For the tutorial, I reached out to Ashleigh, mummy of Arlo, Spencer, Poppy, and Danny. Her sweet baby Arlo was born sleeping in April 2020. This tutorial uses their names and is a tribute to their family, who misses their baby boy each and every day.
Materials you will need:
-construction paper (I used blue to be like the sky in the background.)
-scissors
-tape
-coffee filters (one for each family member)
-writing utensils (Markers and crayons would work great. I chose to use chalk and my favorite felt-tipped pen.)
NOTE: The number of sheets of construction paper you may need can vary for however many members of your family there are. As you work on this project, you may need to gauge how large each coffee filter needs to be in order to fit on the construction paper. Trim down coffee filters as you see fit.
Step 1: Tape the sheets of construction paper together.
Step 2: Make your snowflakes
*Each snowflake will represent each family member.
Fold the coffee filter in half.
I wanted the snowflakes to be 6-sided as they are in real life. A simpler way to make them is the 4-sided approach, folding the filters into quarters. To create 6-sided snowflakes,, I folded the right-end side inwards to make two pie pieces of about the same size.
I then took the left-end side and folded that on top of the fold I had just made to make one single "pie piece."
For mom Ashleigh, I kept the coffee filter the original size. For the children in the family, I trimmed off some of the filter to make a smaller snowflake, as shown below:
From there, I added cuts and notches to create a unique snowflake for each family member. When you open up the snowflakes, place them on the construction paper and see how you would like them to be arranged.
Step 3: Create your display
Once you like how they are arranged, it is time to tape the snowflakes down. If you have double-sided tape, then it is easy to just place the tape on the back of each snowflake and stick down. I didn't have double-sided tape, so I show two ways to stick each snowflake. One way is to just tape down the ends of the snowflakes as the middle snowflake is in the picture. The other way is to fold up the tape sticky-side-out and place it on the back of the snowflake. Then stick it right onto the construction paper. This is what I am doing to the top left snowflake.
I wrote the name of each family member by their snowflake. Lastly, I added the title: "Each member of our family is one-of-a-kind!"
If a family has more than one living child, there are a couple of ways I've thought of to work on this craft:
-Each child in the family makes their own individual craft.
-The children collaborate by making one display. Each child makes their own individual snowflakes. For any deceased babies, the siblings can take turns creating their snowflakes. For instance, once the coffee filter is folded, one sibling cuts out a notch and passes it to the next sibling to add another notch. Continue this process until the snowflake is complete or each sibling has had a turn cutting a notch.
I hope that this craft is one that your family finds both meaningful and enjoyable!
-Megan