Thursday, July 5, 2012

Frugal Fun - Patriotic Pinwheels

Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July!  We had a lovely day at my parent's swimming, relaxing, eating and setting of some fireworks.  Before we started our festive day, I was able to get a frugal craft done - yea!!

I wanted to try my hand at paper pinwheels and found some directions on the Martha Stewart website.  What a super easy and fun craft!!

Materials Needed:
Scrapbook paper
Scissors
Glue
Ruler

To begin, I selected some scrapbook paper from my mountainous stash that was patriotic themed.  I measured out squares ranging in shape from 3*3 to 6*6 and cut them out.


Once I had my squares cut, I glued together two different pieces of paper - so each side had a different design.  Next - fold the glued squares into a diagonal.

Fold a second time into a diagonal shape.

Open the folded square back up and cut along the creases, approximately 2/3 of the way into the center of the square.  Once all four corners are cut, fold every other point into the center and glue.

The first pinwheel I made I used scrapbook glue - which did not turn out to be strong enough!  Second round I used tacky glue - which worked out a bit better.  Next time I make these, I might just use a hot glue gun and call it a day!!

After I had all the points glued down (finally!) in the center, I put some glitter in the middle to spice it up.


Initially, my plan was to make traditional pinwheels on a wooden dowel - but as I was making these I decided they would be super cute on my front door.  I then glued each pinwheel onto various pieces of ribbon and used it has a door decoration.  Don't they sort of look like fireworks?!

Overall - I was able to create this fun patriotic decoration for free!!  All of the materials I already had on hand.  Can't beat that! 

Happy Crafting!

3 comments:

  1. Love this! I'm always looking for inexpensive ways to decorate, and I am loving this. Any warm weather holiday could be spiced up with these, thanks for the tutorial - I'm pinning this so I can find it again when I want it!

    Marissa @ forfunreading.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for stopping by Marissa and thanks for pinning!! I'm off to check out your site. :)

      Delete
  2. Super cute! It looks easy enough to turn into a mommy/daughter craft... and I've got plenty of paper so it'd be free for me too.

    Thanks for linking up at Thrifty Thursday, Nicole!

    ReplyDelete