25 Days of Snowflakes 2025 [Designs & Patterns!]
I’ve decided to compile all of my 25 Days of Snowflakes designs into one blog post this year! If you’d like to follow along as I count down to Christmas through snowflakes, you can follow me on Instagram or Facebook. Or just check back here each day to see what I’ve added! I will try to include patterns for each snowflake - to save myself the emailed questions, please read the info below:
You can assume every snowflake pattern will require using an X-Acto knife & cutting mat to cut out unless I say otherwise in the description
For hole punches and scissor recommendations, check out my Supplies page
December 1: Turkey
Soooooo I’ve had “plan out 25 days of snowflakes” on my to do list for about a month and here we are... it’s December 1st (she realizes as the sun has already set! ) and I will clearly be winging it for 25 days of snowflakes this year! I’ve been distracted by the best kinds of things: birthday parties for my now decade-old youngest kid, family in town, getting the Christmas tree, etc. I almost decided to skip it this year, but I really love counting down to Christmas with snowflakes and trying to come up with new designs for each day. Plus, I’ve gotten a few requests lately (if you have ideas, send them my way! ) So, I’ll do my best while trying not to stress about it too much... which seems to be the life lesson I have to return to most. (Speaking of which! I’m reading this very interesting book called “Ganbatte!” which is about a Japanese philosophy focused on doing the best you can with what you have. The gist is that you do the best you can and keep moving forward. Have any of you read that book? Did you like it? I’m only about 1/4 of the way through so far, but look at me practicing what I’m learning!) Long story short, here is what I like to call the “turkey upgrade” snowflake! I’ve been cutting the same turkey snowflake design since Thanksgiving circa 1999 and this is a more detailed version. If you try this out, you’ll need a hole punch and an X-acto knife, but it’s not too difficult. I’ve included a template if you’re interested in trying it out! You’ll need to fold the snowflake and then transfer the pattern on (I often use my computer like a lightbox and trace patterns onto my paper), then you will cut out the black portions and leave the white portions. If you try it out, let me know! Happy kickoff to 25 days of snowflakes!
December 2: Charlie Brown Christmas
A Charlie Brown Christmas was our family’s first holiday movie of the year - my son made hot cocoa in our vintage Cocomotion hot chocolate maker “from the late 1900s” and we curled up on the couch to watch it together. I made this snowflake 9 years ago when I was just beginning this snowflake side-business! I didn’t sell it (because I’m a stickler for honoring copyright, as you can tell from my Licensing page), but it was fun to test my skills on something so recognizable. Fun fact about this snowflake: one of the Snoopy heads was accidentally decapitated in the unfolding process, but I glued it back where it should be. Keep that in mind if you ever mess up a snowflake - it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be close enough that most people can’t tell.
December 3: Ornaments
We’re on day 2 of having no internet (which is… challenging as a website designer… and VERY challenging as a mom of 2 tweens who want to be on screens when they get home from school). So, we’re decorating the Christmas tree! Since we can’t stream music, my 12-year-old is singing carols but changing every single word to “feet” which is as delightful as it sounds and never, ever gets old. I’m sending this out via my cell data hotspot which reminds me of using dial up in 2001… you click something and then you can go make yourself a snack while it takes a few minutes to load. Anyway… happy day 3 of #25DaysofSnowflakes!
December 4: Sailboats & Lighthouses
I had a request for a lighthouse snowflake, and I’m cheating a little bit by sharing a past design that may be new to some of you! I created this sailboat & lighthouse snowflake in 2016, and it was one of my best-selling greeting card designs for a few years (especially around Father’s Day). I designed it to look like the wheel of the ship, where the lighthouses would be the handles/spokes, and the waves create the rounded wheel look. If you have an X-acto knife, this is not terribly hard to cut out, especially because the lighthouse bases connect, which makes it a very solid & sturdy snowflake. I cut this out of archival buffered tissue paper which is nice and thin but opaque, and I paired it with a watercolor background to give it an ocean-y vibe. If you were to give this as a gift, the center of the snowflake also gives you a nice space for a dedication or an inscription if that floats your boat (I couldn’t resist that one!)
December 5: Celtic Knots
This was another request, from my dear friend Kiwi! We went to Ireland together many years ago and it was one of those trips you never forget - scenic beauty, silly adventures, and laughing until it hurts. If you’re looking to make a Celtic knot snowflake, here are 3 tips: pick a knot that is simple & symmetrical (many of them are not symmetrical, even if they appear to be at first!), don’t rush, and just assume you’re going to make a mistake somewhere along the way. I usually mess up during the shading part and have to go back and erase half of my work. That’s just part of the journey. I was watching Lindsay Lohan’s new holiday movie while I shaded this one so I make NO promises on accuracy!
This specific Celtic knot is a version of a trinity knot, which is said to symbolize eternity, spirituality, unity, and special trios (birth/life/death, past/present/future, earth/sea/sky, etc.). I had a feeling people would want some additional tips on this snowflake, so I also made a video!
December 6: Sand Dollars
It’s SO cold out here today! I took the dogs for a walk and the wind was whipping, blowing snow drifts across the road (and my face). So this is a vacation snowflake to transport me to a warmer climate for a few moments! My inspiration for this snowflake (other than the bitter cold) is from a shadowbox-type frame I made years ago. You can see in the picture showing the framed artwork that the sand dollar is is attached to a layer of card stock with starfish cutouts. That layer is against the front of the glass, and the waves/sand layer is in the back of the shadowbox. The next photo shows the greeting card version, which I edited digitally to show the depth of the layers (I added drop shadows), since it was being printed and I didn’t want to lose the floating layer feeling. This new design is slightly different - after doing some Googling of sand dollars, I decided to make it a little more detailed and hopefully more accurate. Hope you are all cozy & warm wherever you are!
December 7: Tiny Snowman
Snowflakes come in all sizes (a couple days ago we had a squall with snowflakes that looked like they were the size of the palm of my hand!), and this paper snowflake is teeny tiny! It measures somewhere between 1.25-1.5”. If you try to cut out this snowflake, I recommend using tissue paper because cutting something so small through regular copy paper will be very, very difficult. Another option would be wrapping paper, which folds nice & flat and is thinner than regular paper. I often fold a larger piece of paper and then trim it down to the size I want it to be later, because folding a 1.5” piece of paper is next to impossible. I used a sewing needle as my “hole punch” to make the eye, and the X-Acto knife veryyyyyyy carefully for the rest of the snowflake. If you’d like to try it out, I made a (very ridiculous-looking) template! You could start by cutting a larger snowflake (maybe 3 or 4” in diameter) and work your way down to smaller & smaller sizes.
December 8: Baby Penguins
I made a snowflake with a family of penguins last year, but I felt like the baby penguin was too small and not able to show off its cuteness (see pic 3), so I decided to give the baby penguin its OWN snowflake this year! This is specifically a baby emperor penguin, which is tough to make in positive & negative space because they’re gray… so, should I default to white or black when cutting them out? In this case, I opted for a solid, sturdy snowflake (also, easier to cut) and kept most of the snowflake white. If you try this out and choose a different way to show the gray, let me know!
December 9: Dance & Music Wedding
This is a snowflake I created years ago as a custom wedding piece. If I’m remembering correctly, the couple met while working in entertainment on a cruise ship (fun fact: that was my career goal in high school!) Unfortunately, that career didn’t pan out, and also unfortunately, I’m not able to include a template for this snowflake. It was a complicated not-quite-symmetrical cut that doesn’t really translate well to a pattern. I cut out the guitar first and then unfolded the snowflake once… then I transferred the silhouette of the couple onto the opened snowflake and cut out the rest. That’s a technique I don’t use often, but it comes in handy for things that are slightly asymmetrical or designs that need to be larger to showcase their details.
December 10: VW Bus
I made a VW Bus paper snowflake for an art festival years ago, and I loooooooved it! I put it against a green watercolor background and framed it in a chrome frame. It sold quickly at the art festival and only later did I realize I never took a picture of it. So I decided to recreate that snowflake for day 10 of #25daysofsnowflakes - but this time I paired it with a tie dye swirl background to really give it some pizazz. What do you think?
December 11: Lotus Flowers
I recently went to a wreath-making workshop at the Cornell Botanic Gardens and we went on a tour of their winter gardens. We saw the evergreens, berries, and bark that bring color to our winter world, and learned lessons from the plants in regards to resilience, remembering the ebbing and flowing of the seasons of life, and trusting ourselves to bloom when the timing is right. It reminded me of the symbolism of the lotus - rising from murky mud and bringing beauty to the world - so I was inspired to make this lotus wreath! You’ll need an X-acto knife to make this one, but you have some wiggle room on the petals. They don’t need to be exact - they just need to be sturdy. So, as long as you don’t cut all the way through the white parts, you should be good!
December 12: Hot Cocoa
Do any of you make hot cocoa from scratch? The packets feel like one of those things (like oatmeal packets) that are marked up in price just for the convenience of having single servings. If you have a good recipe let me know, I’d love to try it out! This hot cocoa snowflake is one of my most-requested patterns, but I haven’t shared the template before because it’s fussy. It would be best to cut this one out of tissue paper or another thin paper because the marshmallows are bareeeeeeely connected. You could skip the tiny lines between the marshmallows if you’re worried about cutting through them, but know that your stack of marshmallows will then look more like a stick, like you’re roasting a marshmallow (which could be fun too!).
December 13: Winter Wreath
My autocorrect really wants “Winter Wreath” to be “Winter Wrath” tonight which seems applicable to how bitterly cold it was walking from my car to the door this afternoon! Hopefully it’s not foreshadowing for the feedback I may get for posting this extremely difficult-to-cut snowflake. It’s obviously one of the more complicated designs featured in #25daysofsnowflakes this year, but if you’re ambitious you should try it out! You’ll need tissue paper, an X-acto knife/cutting mat, and some patience. Start with the hole punches and make sure you hold the paper really flat so it doesn’t slide around. Then just go slow and steady. That’s what I did this evening when I tried crocheting for the first time since 2006! It took me about an hour just to understand how to read the directions (ch 8, sl st in the next st, hdc then dc … WHAT on earth?) but I eventually made a very cute disembodied evil snowman head and I’m pretty proud/exhausted. So that could be YOU except with a beautiful winter snowflake wreath/wrath! Go for it!
December 14: Giraffes
This was another request this year - I can’t believe I’ve never made giraffes before! I thought I’d fully exhausted the animal kingdom in snowflake designs, especially those with distinct light & dark patterns. This snowflake can be made easier to cut out by reducing the number of spots on the giraffe (or skipping them completely and adding them in with a marker!) You could try using a hole punch for spots, but I think the organically-shaped spots are part of what makes giraffes so beautiful, and the hole punches may make your snowflake look like a very long-necked baby fawn, haha. If you’re having trouble with the details, you could also zoom in on the pattern and just cut from the neck up (make the pattern bigger on your piece of paper so it would be easier to cut out).
December 15: Snow Globes
This snow globe snowflake is a good starting point for experimenting with positive and negative space. If you know that your snowflakes will need to be black (because they’re hole punches!) and therefore the sky needs to be white, what can you cut in the bottom of the snow globe? You could try a snowman silhouette, a little house, some pine trees, a little family, etc. If you switch it up (like in the third picture) and make the background of the snow globe black, you’ll need to sprinkle your snow in there (I opened up my hole punch and just dumped out the contents and sprinkled them in each snow globe) and you can choose to cut something out in positive space so it will show up white. Try it out both ways & see what you think!
December 16: Sunshine
This sunshine paper snowflake uses ALL the paper cutting supplies: the X-acto knife, hole punches, AND the special star hand punch. If you don’t have the hand punches, you could just do the triangles with your X-acto knife, or skip all the cutting frills and just make a beautiful sunshine with solid rays! You’ll skip the face at first and only cut out the rays, and then when you’re done with the hard part, you’ll unfold until the paper is only folded in half once. Then cut out your sunshine face and unfold completely!
December 17: Ladybugs
This is an “easy” snowflake that you can cut out without an X-acto knife! The design is made for with 1/4” holes for the ladybug’s spots, but if you have a smaller hand punch you can experiment with smaller spots (or more spots - my quick Google image search of “how many spots does a ladybug have?” showed bugs with many different spot patterns!), and if you don’t have a hand punch you could also draw the spots on with a marker. The trickiest part of the snowflakes are the ladybug’s antennae. Be sure to hold your paper tightly so it doesn’t slide while you’re cutting them out or you may have a few bugs with antennae and a few bugs without.
December 18: Crab
I love the look of this crab snowflake from far away - it looks like one of those macro snowflake photographs - the sides are very round and it has a really interesting center shape. Then when you look closer you see the crab! That’s my favorite kind of a design, one that brings you back for a second look. This design needs a hole punch, but otherwise could be cut out with scissors (especially if you have micro-tip scissors). This design was another request - what else would you like to see? We have one week left!
December 19: Stockings
Did you notice that the stockings are “upside-down” in this snowflake? (Really since they’re circular, the patterns are always in the round and inevitably one of them would be upside-down). It’s easier to see on the pattern - the foot of the stocking is toward the outer edge. I don’t often design in this perspective because I’ve noticed people tend to look at the top of the finished paper snowflake to decipher the design, and if it’s upside-down it can be confusing. In this case, they might see something like … sweater arms with elbow patches … or garbage grabber tongs … or aliens with googley eyeballs and worried mouths. (What did YOU see when you first looked at it?) BUT flipping the stocking upside-down on the pattern allows it to be a bit bigger because it can fill the space better. And it’s cute to have the tops of the stockings join together instead of the toes… What do you think?
December 20: LEGOs
Here’s a little, sharp LEGO snowflake to celebrate the little, sharp LEGOs I’ve been stepping on! In about 5 minutes I’m going to try to reclaim the coffee table from my daughter who has used it for an elaborate LEGO construction… my plan is to slide everything safely onto a cookie sheet and deliver it to her room. I’m sure it will go perfectly according to plan and be well-received when she gets home. Wish me luck! (Cutting tips: your folding really matters on this snowflake - try to line up the folded edges PERFECTLY, and leave some extra white space along both folds to keep your LEGO pieces together!)
December 21: Polar Bears
Did you know that most polar bears are born in December? They’re often litters of twins, and all of the bears stay in the den until spring (meaning that mama bear doesn’t have anything to eat or drink while she cares for the babies!) If you know a new mother in your human life, I highly recommend supporting the opposite - bring that mama some food and a drink!
