After last weeks baby shower post, I had several requests for a tutorial on the pinwheels I created. So I thought it would be neat to do an entire week of projects that use nothing but paper. First up, pinwheels!

What you need: 8.5 x 11 paper, hot glue gun, double sided transparent tape, cardboard from cereal box

Step 1: You’ll need 8 sheets of 8.5 x 11 paper to make a large pinwheel. Start by taking the paper (portrait, not landscape orientation) and accordion folding it, making the folds about 1 inch wide. (To speed up this process, you can fold two at a time.)

Step 2: After folding all 8 sheets, you’ll want to take them one by one and cut a round edge on one of the sides. Or you can skip this step, but I love mine looking a little bit curvier.

Step 3: Next start taping the folded pieces of paper together using your double sided tape.

Step 4: Continue step 3 until you have all 8 pieces taped together creating one long strip of folded paper.

Step 5: Fan out the strip in a round shape creating a circle and close it up using double sided tape.

Step 6: Cut out a circle of cardboard from a used cereal box and hot glue to the back of your pinwheel. This will give it stability and then you can punch a hole and hang it or press a thumb tack in to  stick it on the wall.

And you are done! To make the smaller pinwheel, just cut an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper in half long ways, giving you two 4.25 x 11 strips of paper. You will need a total of 4 of these strips to make a pinwheel. Experiment with different sizes, and papers with patterns!  Try stacking the smaller ones on the larger to create a layered effect. Another idea is to use a decorative edge punch before folding to give the outer edge some added charm. You can do no wrong with these.

Happy pinwheel making! Stay tuned tomorrow for another fun project.