|

Easy Pinwheel Tutorial

Pin It

Easy Pinwheel Tutorial

I’m completely obsessed with pinwheels right now. I blame it entirely on Pinterest…. For a visual person like me, that has got to be one of this decades greatest inventions!

Last Saturday I was in charge of a church picnic for 500 people… (I’m still recovering). It turned out to be a fun party, I have no photos of it though- too busy running around like a crazy person that day!

For the picnic,  I needed to think of something cheap and easy for 30+ table centerpieces.  It had to be little to no cost, and I had to be able to make them in an afternoon.

I’d been obsessing over pinwheels and thought it would be so cute to have pinwheels in buckets for the centerpieces…. Last week I shared this instagram photo of my progress:

I ended up making 90 pinwheels in ALL!! Using scrapbook paper I already owned (no cost)…  Now, before you think that I have LOST MY MIND I wanted to share with you how I did it…


Here is how to make a pinwheel:

The trick I realized was working with 12×12 scrapbook paper- which eliminated cutting out squares, and using my paper trimmer (no measuring). There are many many pinwheel tutorials out there, most require a pattern (if you want an AWESOME one check out this one at Heather Bailey blog)… This one does not require a pattern- it’s a cheater pinwheel!

How to make easy pinwheels

I loved the centerpieces and decided to make a similar one for my daughters bedroom. Her room is a work in progress, still no quilt on her bed (I’ve been making one… for the last year), but I thought the pinwheels would add a bit of charm to the room!

Okay, here’s how you do it!

Take a piece of 12×12 scrapbook paper and fold it in half diagonally.
Place it in your paper trimmer and with the fold flush with the bottom of the trimmer, start cutting at the top and stop cutting at the 10″ mark.
Unfold the paper and fold the OTHER direction, repeat cut
You will end up with a paper that looks like this.
Put a bit of tape on the tip of the pinwheel and bring into center and tape it down.
Repeat until it looks like this.
Add something cute to the center- here I used ribbon, you can also use flowers and punched circles.
Punch a hole in the center of the pinwheel (making sure to catch all the layers).  Punch out a 1″ circle out of scrap paper, place it on the back. Feed a brad though all the layers.
Using a hot glue gun, glue a bamboo skewer to the back. Make sure the glue only gets on the circle otherwise your pinwheel will not spin.
Colorful Spring Pinwheels
I made 2 more pinwheels. One of them is from a 9×9 piece of paper and one is from a 6×6 piece of paper.
I put them in a bucket filled with beans, on her nightstand.
A wider shot (someday she will have a quilt)
And on a totally unrelated note, I could not resist this PINK book at Barnes and Noble over the weekend.. It’s gorgeous! Gold leafed pages and beautiful illustrations.  Plus it matched her room *wink*
I hope you like the pinwheels!! beware- you’ll be seeing more of them here in the coming weeks 🙂

Similar Posts

9 Comments

  1. Thank you!!! I can’t wait to try this. I just pinned it. And I love your daughter’s room and new book. Can’t wait to see the quilt.

  2. These pinwheels are so adorable! And I love your daughter’s room. Do you happen to know the paint colors for the wall and the green shelves? They are just perfect!

    I’d love to include the photo of your daughter’s room in my next post — I’m doing an inspiration post for my daughter’s room. Would you mind if I included yours? I would give you credit and link back to your site, of course.

    Please let me know!

    Best,

    ~Angela~

  3. Pingback: My Toddler Client, Part Two
  4. Pingback: My Toddler Client, Part Two
  5. I love your idea!! Where did you find the double sided scrapbook paper because I have only seen single sided in stores?

  6. Hi Melissa, I love this! Just tried it with my daughters, but we cannot get our pin wheels spinning. We made sure no glue went through and we’ve loosen the brad clips. Could there be any other tips or tricks we’re missing to get them spinning? Thanks x

  7. Pingback: Paper Pinwheel & Reading Nook - Play Dough & Popsicles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.