Patriotic Pinwheels, Red White Blue Series via PaperCrafter’s Corner

My name is Stephanie Hackney and I’m the owner and chief papercrafter over at PaperCrafter’s Corner, a leading source for papercrafting information, inspiration and entertainment.

We’re so excited to have the opportunity to share a quick and easy papercraft project with you here at Sugar Bee Crafts – thanks for the invite, Mandy!

Today’s Project: Patriotic Pinwheels

These are so very fun and easy to make and display – just change up the colors and you’re ready to decorate your home, yard or vehicle, or even a sweet treat like a cake or cupcake, for special occasions!

Only three items are needed to make these:

• WRMK Pinwheel Punch Board
• WRMK Pinwheel Attachments (Optional: coordinating paper straws*)
• Coordinating Patterned Papers

Step One:
Choose 3-5 coordinating patterned papers (I prefer odd numbers and I like to have each pinwheel be a bit different, but you could make an even number of pinwheels and/or use fewer patterns if you prefer).

Notes: you can use scrap paper for this if the scraps are large enough for your desired finished pinwheel size (see step two); if your paper is single-sided and you want the insides of the pinwheels to also be patterned rather than white, you’ll need to cut additional papers for this purpose (see notes about this below).

Step Two:
Decide which size pinwheels you want to create and check the Pinwheel Punch Board sizing chart for the correct paper size – then cut your paper(s) to that size (the papers will be cut into squares).

You can choose to cut all of your papers the same size, resulting in all finished pinwheels being the same size, or cut different sized papers which will result in your finished pinwheels being of various sizes.

There’s no right or wrong in papercrafting!

Note: if your papers are single-sided and you want the insides of your pinwheels to be patterned as well, you can simply cut extra squares and place the cut squares wrong side to wrong side and continue with the steps below. Don’t try to punch and cut them separately and then match them – it won’t work, trust me!

Step Three:
Using the punch located in the upper right corner of the WRMK Pinwheel Punch Board (PPB), punch the corner of each cut square of paper.

To do this, simply slide the paper in tight against the punch, press to punch the hole and curves, then turn the paper 90 degrees and repeat until all four corners are punched.

Repeat this process with all of your cut papers.

Note: be sure to periodically clear out the punched pieces of paper from under the PPB if you are punching more than a few.

Step Four:
Lift the cutting guide arm up and place your first cut and punched paper along one of the two sets of measurements on the PPB – one set of measurements cuts one shape and the other cuts a different shape. You can mix and match shapes for variety!

Align the punched hole and the curve on your cut paper square with the same on the PPB.

Important: You want to align your cut paper squares with the number that matches your finished square size (5″ square = matching to the 5″ markings).

Then lower the cutting guide arm and push down so the plastic punch at the lower end of the arm pierces your paper (this holds your paper in place and creates the center punch needed for attaching the Pinwheel Attachments to your pinwheels).

Now remove the red cutting housing from its holder (be careful, the protruding blade is sharp!), place it in the guide rail with the blade on the outside of the rail and the guide wheel inside the rail, and start cutting by sliding the blade housing down from the start of your paper square’s cut curve to the end of the guide rail.

Rotate your paper 90 degrees after each cut and repeat this process until you have all four corners cut.

Then, remove that paper and start on the next one, repeating this process until you have all of your papers cut.

Step Five:

Now that you have all of your papers punched and cut, start assembling the Pinwheel Attachments, leaving the final piece (the locking button) off until after your cut papers are mounted on the Pinwheel Attachments stem.

Once you have your Pinwheel Attachments assembled, start assembling your pinwheels by adding one punched and cut paper square to its Pinwheel Attachment, folding in the “arms” so their punched holes are slid onto the attachment post, and adding the locking button after all four “arms” of the pinwheel have been slid onto the attachment post.

Note: if you want to layer one “style” of pinwheel with another style of pinwheel, or one size pinwheel with another size of pinwheel, layer them on the post before pushing the locking button in place.

*Additionally, if you want to swap out “decorative” and coordinating straws (like the patriotic straws shown above in the first supplies photo), simply use those instead of the straws that come in the Pinwheel Attachments package.

And voila – a finished pinwheel!

Repeat the above processes for each pinwheel and you’ll soon have a whole collection you can use for decorating for most any holiday or event.

Last holiday season I made these with glossy gold paper and created an instant New Year’s tree!

So, what do you think?

Doesn’t this look like a fun papercrafting project?!

The WRMK Pinwheel Punch Board is one of our favorite new tools and it’s getting a lot of use!

Considering it retails for less than $25, and the attachments run less than $5 for a set of 10 (and can easily be re-used!), how can you go wrong?!

Thanks for checking out our contribution to the Sugar Bee Crafts Red, White & Blue Event – it’s been a blast for us to participate.

If you’d like to learn more about the WRMK Pinwheel Punch Board and Pinwheel Attachments we used for this project, be sure to check out our unbiased review of the WRMK Pinwheel Punch Board & Pinwheel Attachments – we put these two products through their paces!

And to learn more about PaperCrafter’s Corner and the many FREE resources we offer, check out the PaperCrafter’s Corner About Us page where we link you to all the resources we provide.

Thanks again for the opportunity, Mandy!
Steph & The PCC Team