A twist on the classic paper snowflakes, these trihexaflexagons will leave you mesmerized by their multiple sides and kaleidoscopic effect.
Hexaflexagons are polygons with multiple faces, discovered by Arthur Stone in 1939. They can be made out of paper, then pinched and turned out to reveal the other sides. Being hexagons, they can easily be made into a variation of paper snowflakes.
Materials
- Paper
- Glue
- Scissors
You can follow this tutorial from the beginning, or use a template and skip steps 1-6.
- Take a strip of paper. The ratio of the short edge to the long edge should be approximately 1:7.
- Take one edge of the strip and lightly bend it to resemble one side of an equilateral triangle, a triangle with three sides of equal length.
- Flip the paper over, and line up the edges of the bend with the straight edge of the strip and the fold. This should form an equilateral triangle.
- Fold this triangle back. Line up the newly folded edge from the previous step with the other edge of the paper strip. This creates another equilateral triangle.
- Keep folding the triangles back until the end of the paper, forming a sort of triangular spring.
- Unravel the spring and count out ten triangles. Cut off the extra.
- Count three triangles from the end. Fold the rest of the tail back.
- Count the two visible triangles nearest to the fold. Bring the rest of the tail behind this part, but leave it in front of the first end. This should form a hexagon plus an extra triangle.
- Flip the hexaflexagon over. Glue the extra end to the triangle it folds over. This should form a hexagon cinched in a spiral. This is a completed hexaflexagon.
- Fold into thirds and cut off small pieces from the paper, as with a regular paper snowflake. Make sure not to cut off an entire edge.
- Unfold to reveal the snowflake.
- Three of the edges have two layers. Push these edges up.
- Turn out the snowflake to reveal the second side.
- Push the two-layered edges up and turn out again to reveal the third side.
Have fun!