Book Review: Snowflakes, Sunbursts and Stars

Snowflakes, Sunbursts and Stars by Ayako Brodek and Shannon Voight is a beautiful hard cover book containing 75 projects for making quilled, kirigami cut and paper folded origami projects. Inside you’ll find basic techniques, the tools you’ll need (most of which you probably already have on hand like scissors, exacto knife, glue, paper trimmer, etc. A quilling tool is probably the only specialty tool you might need to pick up), color photos for each project, very detailed step by step directions for making each one (and templates when needed) and project ideas. There are three levels in the book, basic, intermediate and advanced so if you’re a beginner or someone with experience you’ll find the perfect projects just for you. These pretty curled, folded and cut designs make wonderful ornaments, packaging embellishments, card accents, jewelry, home decor items and more!

I love paper cutting so I tried out two of the kirigmi projects and made snowflakes for the front of a cards. The directions were easy to follow, I folded my paper square (I used a thin white paper with silver sparkles in it) and copied the included template and adhered it to my folded piece of paper (you can also trace the template or just eyeball the design) and used my scissors to cut around the template, removed the template and when I carefully unfolded it I got these wonderful snowflakes! Some tips:  Thinner paper works best, you’ll be folding and cut several layers, it’ll be easier if it’s not too thick. Also be sure your scissors and/or exacto knife are nice and sharp to go through all the layers. Next I think I’ll sit down and cut out a bunch and string them together for a holiday garland for my fireplace mantel.

Snowflakes, Sunbursts and Stars is published by Kondasha, distributed by Oxford University Press and retails for $25.95, click here for more information including links to where you can buy the book on-line.

-Heather