DIY Recycled Six Pack Snowflakes

... and a Giveaway!

I've got a little tutorial and a little giveaway for one of you to make your own set of these cute Christmas decorations. The story on these snowflakes actually goes back a while. I think Mom found instructions on how to make them in a Country Living magazine once and we made several of them to hang from the ceiling in our sunroom. I thought it would be fun to make some to hang in the trees in our front yard here, but since Joe and I don't drink much soda, I put the thought out of my mind (you have to have 16 six pack rings to make 1 large snowflake!) One day a few months ago I happened to glance in the recycling bin in the kitchen at work and lo and behold, it was full of six pack holders! I knew this was fate and since there was no one else in the kitchen I quickly grabbed them all out of the bin and brought them to my office. It turns out that the Pepsi man who refills our vending machine every other week usually just throws out the ring when he visits every 2 weeks. So for the next several weeks, I made sure to catch him every other Tuesday morning and ask if he'd kindly set the rings aside for me. I have no shame :) By this time last week, I had enough for more snowflakes than I needed! That's where the giveaway comes in. I'll send one of you enough six pack holders to make 3 large snowflakes and 3 small ones (or just 11 small ones), and all the other supplies you'll need! The tutorial may be a little detailed, so I better jump right in.

Large Six Pack Snowflake
(uses 16 six pack rings; 8 per side)

Step 1: Start by making all the individual pieces. You'll do this same step for all 16 rings.
Fold the rings in half long ways (hot dog style) and staple the rings together along the long edge on each end where they meet. Do not staple the two middle rings together.

Repeat for all 16.

Step 2: Now you'll make 1 side of the snowflake. It is necessary to make a 2 sided snowflake to keep it from flipping out of its round shape. Take 2 of your hot dog pieces and line them up next to each other, then staple them together at one end as seen below. Then continue until you have 8 of them in a row. Then staple the first and last together to make a ring. Hopefully the pictures below will help make that more clear. Do this with both sets of 8 so you'll have 2 rings.

Step 3: Working with one of the rings, start with 2 pieces that are next to each other and staple them together at the middle section that had not been stapled in step 1. Do this all the way around so that the pieces are all attached. Repeat with the second ring. See pictures below.

Step 4: Now you'll connect the 2 rings. This is kind of tricky to explain. Lay one ring on top of the other and staple the ends of the each snowflake point together. You  kind of have to flip one of the tips inside out so it will fit inside the other one. This is where the mini stapler really comes in handy in such a tight spot.

The staple to connect the two sides will go right about where my thumb is, at each point of the snowflake.

Step 5: You'll probably notice once the 2 sides are connected that the sometimes bubble out or flip out to one side or the other. I found that if you can just get them connected with a couple staples in the middle of the snowflake, it will fix those problems. I didn't really get a good picture of this, but you just have to squeeze the stapler in there and get them connected.

Small Six Pack Snowflake
(uses only 6 rings)

Step 1: Fold one six pack ring in half "hamburger style" and staple just one of the sides together where they meet. (see the picture below). Repeat for each of the remaining 5 rings.

The staple for step one will go right where my thumb is.

Step 2: Hold 2 of the pieces next to each other, both facing the same way, and staple the small folded ends together, but just through one layer of the rings (see picture below). Continue with the other pieces until you have a ring of 6 by connecting the beginning and the end.

The small folded ends of 2 pieces are on the right and are stapled together.

Step 3: Now you'll connect the outer edges of the pieces together to make the ring more stable. Staple the edges of neighbor pieces together where they were not stapled in the first step. Do this all the way around the circle and you're done!

It's a little blurry, but the edges of the two pieces are stapled together in the middle. The edges of the pieces on the outsides will be stapled to the next 2 pieces. 

The final steps for both snow flakes is to spray paint them, add some glitter then hang them up in the house, or as I plan to do, outside in a tree. It's a great way to use up something that would other wise be trashed or recycled, and I happen to think they're actually really pretty :)

I haven't had time to hang them up outside during the daylight, so I have no pictures of them there. But I did hang them from the ceiling fan in our family room for a little bit just to snap some pics in front of our Christmas tree.

Now for the giveaway!  As I said before you'll get the six pack rings to make the snowflakes, a mini stapler and staples, and fishing line for hanging. Since I don't want to mail spray paint and spray glitter, I'll include a $10 gift card to Walmart for you to pick that up on your own. I would recommend getting a spray primer since it will stick nicely to the plastic and it covers well. The spray glitter I got is Krylon and it really worked well! To enter, just leave a comment (or shoot me an email) letting me know your favorite kind of Christmas cookie. (I'm always looking for new cookies to bake haha) I'll do the drawing on Thursday so I can hopefully send these out on Friday or Saturday. That's it for tonight! I hope you're having a good week so far and thanks for reading!