Geeky Star Wars and LOTR Snowflakes!

After putting up our fireplace, I decided that we needed some more season-appropriate decor to go with it...so I made some snowflakes! I still have to figure out how to hang them up, but I'm so excited to have them all cut out! I think the last time I made snowflakes was in elementary school, and I must say, these are way cooler than the ones I used to make. Because now that I've owned up to being a geek, I'm going to celebrate it in every way I can, including snowflake-making.

Admiral Ackbar, by Anthony Herrera.

It started out with seeing these amazing Star Wars character snowflakes in my RSS feed: this guy made up templates for Yoda, Admiral Ackbar, and C3PO, among others. These were inspired by Matters of Grey's Darth Vader, Stormtrooper, and Boba Fett snowflakes. Aren't they amazing? I pulled out some old origami paper (Winnie the Pooh brand, courtesy of a Cathay Pacific kid's activity pack from years ago), folded it into the starting wedge, and got started. I was too lazy to get out my X-Acto knife at first, so I went with the one I thought I could cut with just plain scissons: the stormtrooper. I didn't bother printing or sketching the design on the PDF; I just started cutting. Once I unfolded it, I got really excited and and realized that this art form is rife with possibilities. Rife, people!

I'm not brave enough to try more faces (my stormtrooper already looks a little kooky even though I tried my best to get his proportions right), so I just did silhouettes. I ended up with a generic tie fighter, Darth Vader's Lambda-class T-4a shuttle, and the symbol of the Rebel Alliance.

For the two ships, I tried my best to replicate the symbol of the Galactic Empire in the middle, but then gave up. Everyone already knows tie fighters are empire, anyway. After cutting out the shuttle, I realized that the scrap leftover was still pretty big, so, never being one to waste crafting supplies, I cut out an octopus snowflake from it. Errr, a tetrapus, really.

If they were squid, one could imagine that they were squirting a giant cloud of ink into the middle.

At this point, I got totally crazy and decided to break out the X-Acto. Having already paid homage to one of my favorite geekdoms (and one anatomically incorrect cephalopod), I knew I had to make some LOTR snowflakes to balance it out. After some thought about what would be most snowflake-appropriate, I decided on Arwen's Evenstar pendant; it already looks all lacy and delicate. Again, I didn't bother sketching anything, just looked at pictures online and started cutting.

I used the cardboard from the Cathay Pacific package as my cutting mat.

Not exactly a movie replica, but good enough!

And then of course I had to make one representing my favorite country, Rohan. I based the horse head loosely off of the banners that Theoden King has hanging in Meduseld. For this one, I took the time to sketch a rough outline before cutting. The wavy lines of the mane were the most difficult of all the designs to cut and then poke out.

Preliminary sketching.

All cut out! Mostly.

Not Winnie the Pooh this time.

Other side!

Here they are in all their Winne the Pooh glory!

I really wasn't kidding about Winnie the Pooh.

I'm so happy with my geeky snowflakes! I'd forgotten how fun paper-cutting is. Now I *almost* want to try making one of those crazy pieces like this amazing artist.

If you want to try making your own, I've put downloadable/printable templates for the Galactic Empire ships (and tetrapus) and Rebel Alliance snowflakes here. Just follow the directions on this site for how to fold a square piece of paper, then cut out all the shaded areas on the template. These can all be done without an X-Acto knife; just make sure you use a really sharp pair of scissors. I like using origami paper because it's thinner than printer paper, but don't feel obliged to use Winnie the Pooh origami paper!

Linked to Wow Me Wednesday,  Whatever Goes Wednesday, and Show and Tell Wednesday.