Paper Crafting, Rubber Stamping, Scrapbooking, and more

3D57- Pinwheels

Spring is finally here, the flowers are coming up and the birds are singing. Today I'm going to share a simple tutorial to create a 3D spring embellishment/project...Pinwheels! I'm sure we all remember playing with these as children ourselves. They're becoming quite popular both in papercrafting and home decor. So join me as I show you how simple it is to create this cute 3D project.

You're going to want to start with a square piece of cardstock or double sided pattern paper. The size depends on how big you want your pinwheel to be. As I was looking through my stash of stamps I found some background stamps make the perfect image, complete with cut lines.
Now with your knife or scissors cut a straight line from one of the corners diagonally in towards the center. Be sure to leave the center uncut.

After you have cut from all 4 corners to the center, begin pulling your corners in. I secured the in the center with a glue dot. If you're not going to use the pinwheel as an actual pinwheel go ahead and flatten the folds down flat.
Embellish the center with a brad or button

Do you remember the square in the top photo with the decorative edge? Here it is made into a pinwheel. There's no rule that says they have to be perfectly straight edges. They just have to be perfectly square. Imagine how cool those scallop nesties would look as pinwheels.

Here's a card that I made for my sample....

And here is an actual pinwheel I made. Instead of adhering the buttons down to the center, after all the corners were secured down, I punched a hole in the center. This allowed me to stick a tack through the hole and secure it into the eraser of a pencil. Now you can add some buttons on top of the tack head with glue dots. In order for the pinwheel to spin you want to be sure not to press the tack all the way into the pencil. And also don't fold your flaps down all the way. You want the wind to catch the wheels. How cute would a bunch of these look for a birthday party or shower?

One of these days I want to scrapbook some of the outdoor photos I have of my kids with a few of these pinwheels as embellishments. Wouldn't that be fun?!

Have fun with it and be sure to tag your projects 3D57 so I can pull them into the correct album! I can't wait to see what you create!

Tags: 3D57

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sunghee on April 13, 2010 at 12:02pm

oh my my!!! these are so pretty! and it looks soooooo good on the card, too!

Permalink Reply by Amy (Tethered 2 Home) on April 13, 2010 at 1:29pm

I agree, such an awesome embellishment for a card.

Permalink Reply by Carol Hester on April 13, 2010 at 1:40pm

I have had this fram for quite a while, but the pinwheel is the perfect embellishment for the picture. Thanks for the Challenge as Pinwheels are sooooo fun

Attachments:

Pinwheel.jpg, 1.1 MB

Permalink Reply by Julia Moss on April 13, 2010 at 4:59pm

Oh great job.

Permalink Reply by Julia Moss on April 13, 2010 at 4:59pm

Oh Oh Oh....I love pinwheels.....can't wait to get started on this project. Thanks so much!

Permalink Reply by randa lee on April 15, 2010 at 9:33am

i've been looking 4 the challenge since early tues morn. couldn;t find it util now...lol
i did an old one fromamy "Take out Box".
will try 2 find time 2 do this too!
hugs, randa :-)

ps more photos & template r on my page if U want 2 sneak peak or download them

Attachments:

set.jpg, 647 KB
box pic front TN.jpg, 153 KB
tiger.jpg, 473 KB

Permalink Reply by Julia Moss on April 16, 2010 at 2:53pm

I love pinwhells so I thought this was so much fun to make. Here is my project......

Attachments:

Pinwheels 005.JPG, 201 KB

Permalink Reply by Julia Moss on April 18, 2010 at 6:55am

I posted my pinwheel project and tagged it but don't see it in the gallery.

Permalink Reply by Wendy P on April 18, 2010 at 8:40am

you had a lower case d in your tag so when I did a search to pull images it wasn't coming up. I have it in there now!

Great job everyone!

Permalink Reply by Julia Moss on April 18, 2010 at 9:24am

thank you....sorry about that

Permalink Reply by Sunghee on April 18, 2010 at 9:34pm

hi wendy! thanks for showing the pinwheels don't have to be just plain square and can also go on the cards! You always inspire me! I was able to use your technique on the project that I was working on this weekend, and I love how it turned out. I'm going make more pinwheels from now on. Added to the gallery.

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