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Pinwheel

Make a classic paper pinwheel with just a few basic supplies—paper, a push pin, and a pencil. We have printable pinwheel templates to make crafting super easy.

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Paper Bowl Jellyfish

Supplies Needed

Paper or cardstock
Scissors
Glue stick
Crayons or markers
Pencil with eraser
Push pin
Bead or small button (optional)

STEPS

1Make a pair of squares.

Start out by cutting two identical squares from paper or cardstock. If you are keen on using templates, you can choose two from any of our pinwheel templates and print them out on Letter or A4 size paper or card stock.

2Decorate the squares.

You can leave the squares plain or draw some patterns or designs on them.

3Cut out the squares.

Cut out both paper squares.

4Glue the squares together.

Glue the undecorated sides of the squares together. Remember to apply glue not just along the edges, but on the entire back area of the squares. Let the glue dry.

5Cut four slits.

Cut along the four diagonal dotted lines.

If you're not using templates, cut four diagonal lines starting from the corners going up halfway to the center of the square.

6Bring one tip to the center.

After making the four slits, you will have 8 tips on your square—these are labeled with numbers on the photo.

Take one of the tips (Tip #1) and bring it to the center of the square without creasing the paper. You can glue the tip in place or just hold it with your hand as you do the next steps.

7Bring the next tip to the center.

Take Tip #3 and bring it to the center of the square. You can glue it in place or just hold it with your hand.

8Bring the remaining tips to the center.

Next, bring Tip #5 and then Tip #7 to the center. Either glue them in place or hold them with your hand.

9Insert a push pin.

Insert a push pin at the center. If you did not glue the ends of the tips in the previous steps, the push pin should hold all four tips together. Wiggle the push pin around to make the hole a bit larger.

10Attach the pinwheel to a pencil.

Attach the pinwheel to a pencil by pushing the pin into the pencil's eraser. Don't push on too tight to allow the pinwheel to spin more freely.

As an option, you can put a bead or small button between the pinwheel and the eraser. This helps the pinwheel rotate better and prevents the pin's point from going through the other side of the eraser.

11Enjoy your pinwheel.

Finally, try blowing at the edges of the pinwheel to make it spin. Loosen the pin a bit if the blades do not rotate well. Enjoy!

More Ideas

Use origami paper.

Use origami paper so that both sides of the paper have prints or color in it. This way you only need one paper square instead of the two that we recommended in the tutorial above.

Furthermore, you can recycle old calendars, magazine pages, greeting cards, thick gift wrap paper or other types of patterned paper to make a colorful pinwheel.

Make a Fourth of July pinwheel.

Make an easy 4th of July pinwheel by decorating one side with stripes and the other side with stars. You can print out striped and starry templates from our pinwheel templates.

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