Snowflake Tree + Ambigram Christmas Gift

This year for Christmas, I wanted to give my mother something creative and unique. I chose to make a tree by pasting together four snowflakes, then wrap it in a scarf with an ambigram (text that can be read in more than one manner to produce different meanings) of my own invention on it.

I made sure that they would have a sturdy 'trunk' and a sizable arm for the band to wrap onto. For the first tree I made, I tried cutting all of the sections at once, but they didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. If your scissors are good enough, go for it.

Note that the left and right of the unfolded flake are slightly different from the top and bottom. You can put that cut in after unfolding once.

Glue along the penciled-in area to attach the flakes together. Once you attach the last one's 'back' to the first one's 'front', you'll be able to unfold it and stand it up! 

Now, glue together the diamond 'hands' to stabilize the form.

Unfold the bottom of each flake to make a stand of sorts, which you should glue to a baseboard (with a nice little note written on it, if you'd like).

You can also bend out the bits of each flake that you haven't glued together to increase the 3D effect. 

I had to invent a new ambigram in the middle of this Instructable, because the one I'd planned on using was 'rotational' (reads a different word when flipped upsidedown), not a 'perceptual shift' (reads as two different things depending on the interpretation), and so wouldn't work by having a fixed orientation.

That's ok. They're not so hard. Be sure to pick phrases of comparable length and... get creative! This ambigram generator only makes 'rotational' ambigrams, but it's a good place to start.

Glue it in place, and enjoy!