Spinning Pinwheel!

School is out for the summer and, if you have kids at home, you may be looking for fun crafts to do with them. It’s super-easy to make your own spinning pinwheels and what kid doesn’t LOVE a pinwheel? There is just something so magical about a pretty spinning wheel on a stick! My own kids love to run through the house making them spin as they run.

Kelleigh Ratzlaff recently released an awesome template and cutting file set that has a couple of different pinwheel styles. She also included a cute scalloped circle to finish off the front middle of the pinwheels. These pinwheels are so very cute, and are great fun to make! Once again, I chose to work with a Quirky Twerp kit that is being released THIS Thursday (June 7, 2012), so enjoy your sneak peek! I told Donna I wanted to turn the papers into a sorbet, they are so yummy!

To make a spinning pinwheel, you will need:

Pink Crush by Quirky Twerp
Pinwheels Template Set and Cutting Files by Kelleigh Ratzlaff
Silhouette Cameo (optional – you can cut these by hand easily!)
Epson Premium Matte Photo Paper
small brad with long prongs
plastic soda straw
glue dots
decorative brads, flowers

First, I used my inkjet printer on its borderless setting to cover an entire 8.5×11 sheet of paper with a pattern. These pinwheels look best on paper that has a pattern on both sides. That’s one of the fabulous things I love about working with digital kits and printing my own paper – I can easily make paper with a different pattern on each side.

Then I opened the cutting file in the Silhouette Studio software, and added my papers to the shapes. Check out this post if you need to know how to add papers in Studio. I cut the pinwheels using the Cameo.

The four-point pinwheel is pretty easy to assemble. Start by placing a brad upside down in one of the points with a hole.

Next, insert the brad into the hole on the left side. Continue around until all four sides have been placed onto the brad.

Now pinch the middle of the pinwheel to get the back hole through the brad.

Fold down the prongs to secure the brad to the pinwheel.

Now that your pinwheel is assembled, take a straight pin or other sharp pin and poke a hole through your soda straw near the top – about 1/4″ to 1/2″ down.

Remove the pin and add the brad. Fold down the ends of the prongs, being sure to leave a good portion of them straight so the pinwheel will spin. Give the brad a few turns to loosen it in the hole so it can spin freely.

Place two 3-D glue dots on the back of the pinwheel.

Attach straw and spinning brad to the pinwheel.

The eight-point pinwheel is a little more tricky to put together and is totally worth the effort! Simply overlap the two pinwheels at a 45° angle:

Then, lay the part of the point with the hole over the top of the next point.

Continue on as you would have with the 4-point pinwheel.

Once your pinwheels are assembled, you can embellish the centers in all kinds of ways. Kelleigh’s files include the scalloped circle you see below, or you can add flowers, ribbon, buttons, or anything else your heart desires.

Voilà! That’s all there is to it! Making pinwheels with your kids is a great summertime activity! We’d love to see what you create if you use this tutorial to make your own spinning pinwheels – be sure to leave a comment with a link to your gallery so we can check it out!

Spinning Pinwheel!

Other Articles by joana1n:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply