Preserving Real Snowflakes
Each snowflake is captured one at a time! When snowfall begins, we setup and wait.
Temperatures must be freezing for snowflakes to form dendrites.
Collection is a race against time!
My art studio is as cold as possible during collection, but UV rays, movement, or ambient heat can damage the snowflake before curing can begin.
I find a paint brush is the best extension of fingers to manipulate things!
Our favorite snowflakes are chosen and transferred onto microscope slides for the preservation process to begin. After weeks of curing, we harvest the snowflakes from the slides and then use various glass and resin layering techniques to achieve the final piece.
Wilson A. Bentley’s famous book Snow Crystals contains the first snowflake photographs taken over 47 Vermont winters. Wilson Bentley captured his first shot of a single snowflake in 1885. His passion truly inspires!
Wilson Bentley wrote:
"The wonders and beauties of snow,"
"The snow crystals ... come to us not only to reveal the wondrous beauty of the minute in nature,
but to teach us that all earthly beauty is transient and must soon fade away.
But though the beauty of the snow is evanescent, like the beauties of the autumn, as of the evening sky, it fades but to come again."
Nakaya Ukichirō, a Japanese physicist is known for growing the first artificial, laboratory grown snowflake in 1936!
Chemist Tryggvi Emilsson captured and preserved the first snowflake in 1979 using superglue!
Various methods have been developed since then, all using the same scientific concepts.
"The molecules in superglue are called cyanoacrylate monomers that interlock with microscopic forms of anything they touch. The glue hardens when monomers link together or polymerize, into long chains called polymers. This process is triggered by any trace of water."
You can read more on the history and different processes at
Capture Memories!
How to preserve a snowflake forever tutorial & kit
Collection Kit Supplies
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6 glass slides
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Paint brush
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Cure resin
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Black collection paper
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Collection certificates
NEED-Cold, snowy day!
Instructions
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Set glass slides, resin, paint brush and collection paper outside when it’s 20°F or colder to chill them. Catch flakes on black collection paper or pick them up with cold paint brush.
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When you find your favorite, place the flake on one of the glass slides and drop resin on the snowflake.
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QUICKLY drop another glass slide on top! Don’t press down too hard or the flake could rupture or melt from the heat of your finger.
We have provided enough supplies for THREE collection samples!
Leave the slides in a freezer for one or two weeks and don’t touch it with warm hands. The resin must completely hard before the snowflake warms up.