Searching For   Flakes:

Never did I dream that we would ever get the Search-for-name capability back when the Sn*wdays site changed things in February 2005. Now that we can look for flakes by name again, several people have expressed to me that they could not search for flakes with my name on them, since I only use one letter and one symbol for my name. So I have thought up an easy way to look for my flakes. If you belong to Snowflakemakers@yahoogroups.com, you can look for one of my messages announcing a flake that I made, and copy the three spaces that include the L, the space, and the music notes symbol. Then paste what you copied into the space for the Name on the Find-A-Flake box. Another way is to write me a message if you happen to catch one of my flakes. Please ask me to respond to your message. When I send you my response back, the “L, space, music notes” will appear in your e-mail notification. Copy and paste from that notification, and voila, you can search for my flakes. Sometimes other flakers use the musical notes in their names, and you may pick up a few of those, as well.   Another way is to go to the Script Symbols in the Tips’n’TriX section, and follow the instructions.
 

Making Faces:

I’m not a graphic artist; I’m a musician. I can’t really draw very well. I always wanted to be able to draw, even when I was very young. I would try and try, and sometimes I got lucky, but most of the time, my attempts were uninspiring. I found I was pretty good at copying, though; also I could easily learn drawing techniques that other people taught me. When you look at some of my Face Flakes, you might think I’m a good artist. (Actually, some of them look really good to me, too.) But I have merely figured out a few triX to make them come out that well.
Learn the proper proportions to a face. Copy a face from a catalog, newspaper, whatever, and find out where the eyes are in relation to the nose, mouth, top of head, chin, etc. Copy a rough draft of a face onto a piece of paper. The details don’t have to be clear; they just have to be in the correct proportions. When you come up with a face that looks almost human, fold the paper in half, and copy the half-face onto your snowflake. Either side. You might be amazed that the scary monster face flakes you usually make have changed into something which actually resembles a human face!
Figure out how to make the eyes. Develop your own style. If you make the eyes look good, the rest of the face will be fine. I’ve developed my own system for eyes. I make the eyebrow first. Then I make the upper eyelashes and iris all in one cut, ending up at my starting point of the inner corner of the eye. The last step is the lower lash line, again starting at the inner corner of the eye, and returning to that same point. I’ve made a couple of flakes with large-sized demo eyes, just so you can see the details: 2012789 and 2017482.
When all else fails, make a template! Most of my first successful Face Flakes were made with a template. The more faces I made, I found I could do without the template, just by following my rules One and Two above. See more about templates below.

Making A Template:

If you want to do cool reverses, pinwheels, stars of all types, pictures, faces, and a whole bunch of other neat things, you really need to make yourself a template, because you will want to know where the corners of the triangle are when they go dark. If you try to make a Fiber Optic Princess, you will definitely need a template. Here’s what I do: I use a clear plastic sheet protector. Lay the plastic right on top of your computer screen. Take a black grease pencil or a black sharpened crayon, and draw little dots onto the plastic at the exact corners of the “Create Your Own Snowflake” triangle. Then take the plastic down, put it on a flat surface, and connect the dots, using a ruler and your black crayon. If you measure the distance between points, you can make several triangles of the same size on several sheets of plastic, so you will always have an available triangle template whenever you want one.

When making a pinwheel, melting star, zooming star, grid star, or other variations, make little dots along the triangle template lines. This makes it possible for you to make further continuing steps when it’s all dark, and you can’t tell where the original lines of the triangle are.

The coolest thing to do with a template is to put it on top of a picture, like a picture of a face in a magazine or catalog, or a picture of an animal, musical instrument, or any bilaterally symmetrical object. Just trace with your black crayon either the left half or the right half of the object. When you place the plastic over your computer screen, simply trace with your mouse the lines you drew onto the plastic, and voila! Cool picture! The black lines on the plastic can be easily wiped clean with a small soft cloth or a tissue, thus you can use the plastic over and over again.
 

Inventing New Techniques:

Thus far in the Snowflake Period of my life, I can lay claim to “inventing” a few techniques, such as the Pulsar, the Fiber Optic Princess, and the Inflatables. The underlying source for all these is my search to find various ways to cause the computer to make straight lines, since there is absolutely no possibility that I will ever be able to manually draw a straight line with the mouse I use. Combining the search for straight lines with the “flash” technique has resulted in many hours of enjoyment in front of this computer screen. Or as my husband would say, many wasted hours….LOL! Anyway, this is my advice for anyone who aspires to figure out new and kewl triX: Once you figure out how to do something, and can actually repeat it, write it down, and send it to MisterX. We will all be thrilled to learn something new from YOU!
 

Searching for specific types of  flakes:

For the Pulsar search, simply type "Pulsar" (no quote marks, of course) into the Find-A-Flake Message boX. That will get you almost 400 flakes. If you also type    into the Name boX, as well as Pulsar into the Message boX, you get close to 300 flakes. Still a lot to look at!

For the Inflatable search, type "Inflatable" into the message boX. You will get a little over 100. Not all of them are mine. They are all fun to watch, though.

A search for "Instructions" is interesting. Even without adding "", I got over 100 results. Lots of cool flakes from other flakers.

Also, look for "Fiber Optic Princess" or just "Fiber Optic."

Face Flakes: I have made so many of them, that I didn't want to type in all the numbers. Suffice it to say that the samples on www.misterX.ca are enough to give the viewer a taste of my face flake style.

The Fiber Optic Webs are the most difficult to search, because I did not always label them as such, but that's what they basically are. I plan to label all my future Fiber Optic Webs by that name.  A search for "Spider Web" combined with "" will get you most of my Fiber Optic Webs. These Fiber Optic Webs are a lot of fun to watch opening. My two personal favorites are 1879140 and 1910848