Italian Snowflakes

 

            Today's Snack: Here's a type of pasta that looks like a snowflake. It's called "Fiorettini." You should be able to buy a box of it at a big grocery store. Boil the pasta according to package directions, pour it into a strainer, add a tablespoon or two of margarine and toss to coat. Sprinkle on some Parmesan cheese, and eat. Yum!

 

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Supplies:

 

Dry pasta

Glue

Waxed paper

White spray paint

Silver, white or clear glitter, if you'd like, and spray adhesive

 

            Let's make a snowflake, and pretend it's from Italy, because it'll be made from something famous that comes from Italy: pasta.

 

            Key point: make sure to use DRY pasta . . . not cooked!

 

            Everybody knows about spaghetti, macaroni and lasagne. But there are so many other pasta shapes and sizes! You should take advantage of that "pasta diversity." If you think ahead and keep odds and ends of dry pasta for a while, you should come up with a nice assortment. Look for intricate, small pieces, tubes and multi-part sections. Ask family, friends and neighbors to give you pieces of irregularly-shaped pasta for this project.

 

            Set a piece of waxed paper, approximately 8 ½ x 11", on the table. Put the pasta on a tray or plate so that it's readily available. You can use a clean, recycled Styrofoam meat tray as a glue dispenser.

 

            First, "design" your snowflake. Put the dry pasta onto the waxed paper so that it looks like a snowflake. Remember, most snowflakes have six identical sides. It might be wise to divide the different pasta shapes you plan to use into six "piles" before you start. Then you can make the six identical sides.

 

            Once you're pleased with the design, it's time to glue it in place. We're going to "build" our snowflake by gluing each individual piece of pasta to another. Eventually, your snowflake will contain a lot of pieces of pasta, all glued together into one whole.

 

Pick up one piece of pasta at a time, dip it into the glue, and then stick it to the adjoining piece of pasta. Try not to get glue on the waxed paper, but it's OK if it happens.

 

            Let dry. Peel away the waxed paper.

 

            Now, place your pasta snowflake on newspaper out in the garage or someplace where you can spray paint without messing up anything else, and spray with white paint. Let dry. Do both sides if you wish.

            If you wish, spray with adhesive, and dust with clear or white glitter.

 

            Hang with string, or mount on dark blue or black paper or posterboard.