Paper Pinwheels

I made these simple pinwheels from cardstock and paper fasteners - the only other supplies you need are a ruler, scissors, hole punch, and a pencil. They don't take long at all to make, you still have time to make decorations for Independence Day decorating next week!

Start with a square of cardstock (or I think lighter weight paper would work good too), any size as long as it's square. I made 3 different sizes - 3" square, 4.5" square, 5.5" square. Draw a faint pencil line from corner to corner (making an "x") and cut up each line stopping maybe 1/2 inch or so from the center. The paper is now cut in 4 triangles (still connected in the center), hole punch one side of each triangle and in the center. Your paper should now look like this:

my red pinwheel has one corner of each triangle rounded off, I drew it out on this sample to show you. If you like how that looks make sure to just round off one corner and the opposite corner gets hole punched for the fastener to go thru.  

After you hole punch the 4 corners and the center you can form the pinwheel two ways:
(1) gently fold each hole punched corner to the center hole and then push a paper fastener thru all at once, or (2) hold the paper fastener and feed each hole punched corner onto the fastener and then push the fastener thru the center hole - whatever's easier for you. Then spread the 2 sides of the fastener apart to hold the pinwheel in place.

Above is the front and back of the 5.5" red pinwheels, the back of the pinwheel is before the fastener is spread open to hold it - see the next photo for what it looks like when the fastener is correctly in place:

To make the double pinwheel like the red one above and small 3" white one below,  I just fed two single pinwheels onto one fastener.

5.5" red double pinwheel, 4.5" single blue pinwheels, 3" double white pinwheel

I can think of many uses for these pinwheels - hook them to paper straws or bamboo sticks and put them in a vase, hang them on ribbon or twine for garland, attach streamers and make parade wands, use in place of bows on presents...look how pretty they look combined with the paper fireworks from last July (click here for that post):

What a pretty bouquet - I'm off to make a vase to put them in!

one year ago: pompom earrings! you know you want them...;)