May 29, 2009

Pinwheels Pinwheels Pinwheels!

Pinwheels! Pinwheels were all the rage with the June kit from Studio Calico. A few of my teammates and I were inspired by the exclusive pinwheel stamp to create our own pinwheels with the delicious colors of this kit and the spring and summer time of year.

I have made them before, but still had to find directions to remind myself how to make them. They are so darn easy. Maybe this time the directions will stick. I *do* have brain sapping young children though. Perhaps I will have to bookmark my own post, lol.

To start your pinwheel, you need one piece of patterned paper. Double sided is preferred, because you will see both sides.

For this pinwheel, I trimmed my paper to 3 inches by 3 inches.


After I was finished, I put a little dot in the center of the square. With this one I just eyeballed it because the pattern in the paper made it easy to guess.

After you make your mark, take a ruler and place it on the diagonal.

Using a blade, trim down the line, stopping at about 1/4 inch from the dot in the center. You don't want to cut your square in half. Don't have a blade? For the pinwheels I made for my layout, I put my square in my paper trimmer.

When you are finished with one side, trim the other diagonal, until your square looks like this:

Next is the fun part.

Now if I could have found a way to show you how to do this without including my hands, I may have done it, for I inherited my mother's man hands. They ain't pretty. I did manage to hide a burn mark near my thumb, though. Yesterday I was grocery shopping while hungry (NEVER do that!) and as I was headed for the clerk I walked right by the rotisserie chicken. Well, the wafting smells of delicious chicken could not be ignored, so I reached in for a bird to take home for dinner. However.... the stinkin' heat lamp they were under totally reached out and grabbed me as I tried to remove chicken licken from the table! I swear it did. But I took her anyway.... and she was GOOD.


Anyway.... my hands. Don't look.

You are going to take one corner of your trimmings on each side of the square and fold it towards the center. I folded the one on the left, but I'm a lefty. You can choose either side, it doesn't matter. Just put a little dot of glue or a glue dot under the tip and press it down over the dot you penciled on the center of your square.



For this next image, gosh darn it if my pointer finger on my man hands looks retarded. And the photo is blurry. Good grief. But I wanted to show you the next step. You can choose to pull down the left corner, or the right corner of your triangle. But whatever side you choose, you need to do that on each corner of your triangle, adhering it in the center. This image shows you the second triangle pulled down, from the left.



Repeat on all four sides until all four corners are in the middle. To make it clean, I also punched a little flower out of paper and added a Basic Grey half pearl. But you don't have to do that.




Voila! A perfectly easy and perfectly made pinwheel to decorate your summer projects.

Check out what some of the DT members did with their pinwheel creations this month:


And here's mine! If you look closely, I made my pinwheels going both ways, depending on how I folded down the corners. I also made two sizes. The big ones were made with 3 inch squares, and the smaller one was a 2 inch square.



Are you inspired now? I'm sure you are itching to make a pinwheel now, aren't you? How about if I issue you a challenge? Okay.

Here's the challenge:

Put a pinwheel on a project. Create your own pinwheel, add it to your next project, and link it to me on this thread. You have until Saturday the 6th at midnight PST (because I am PST, woot!).

On Sunday morning I will draw a name, and the winner will get one of these:



That's the Effervescence punch. I know you have been wanting to try it out! Now get to work! A card, a layout, a wall hanging, it doesn't matter. It just needs to have a handmade pinwheel on it.

Have a great weekend! I'm headed to Portland to take my kiddos to the zoo!

Davinie

40 comments:

Karen said...

thanks Dav....will try one tonight!

Sandy said...

fun! Thank you for sharing and your hands are perfect! Look at all the beautiful creations you make with them :) Going to make some pinwheels with my daughter!

Rachael said...

Dav this is just what i need for some embellies for some thank you cards!!! I will be trying one tonight!!

northcarmen said...

This is awesome. I was loving the pinwheels right from the sneaks onwards... and hoping someone would show me how!! :) :) Thanks, Davinie!

Julie Campbell said...

Your post cracked me up! I always try to avoid posting pics of my hands too. ;) But- honestly, your hands look completely normal! :)

I loved this tutorial and just finished a card using it. It took me about 5 minutes tops to make the pinwheel. These things are SO cute and easy! I'll post as soon as I can get a pic.

Vera said...

here's a card with a pinwheel on it.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3608/3577811064_06ff176841.jpg

Kathy said...

thank you so much.... I made these when i was a kid..many.many,years ago...and forgot how; thanks again for the refresher...

isabel said...

http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11283

davinie, thanks for this tutorial... here's a card with some pinwheels !!!

la zaz said...

http://imagik.fr/view-rl/64773

and one for me... amazing tutorial
thanks for sharing

kat78 said...

I like your hands!
Not everyone can have perfect hands - my hands are small and have "square" not long nails - but i do nice things with them - SO WHAT! I can't change them and they are my heritage! (;

Lynda said...

OH thanks so much I was just looking yesterday for instructions for these's and I didn't know what they were called.I am off to have play.I will be back later with my creation.LOL

Kimberly said...

So FUN!@ LOVE this...I think I will do this tonight on some projects I'm doing! xoxo
Love ya! xoxo
K

Rachael said...

This was Oh so much fun!! :-) Made my thank you cards that much more fun (i am not a big card maker)! Anyways here is my link:
http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11301
Have a great rest of your weekend!!

isabel said...

http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11307

one more for me... i'm like a kid doing this !!!
thanks davinie...

Lynda said...

Here is the link to my blog to see my layout with some of your cool pinwheel's.Thanks so much for sharing.


http://mypassionscrapping.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

loved what you did with these Dav. They are so effective. Thanks for the tutorial...just had to give this a shot. - hera
http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11309

~amy~ said...

first of all what a fab tut...thanks, those pinwheels are adorable...if it makes you feel any better, I have my mom's man hands too but they look like 90 year old man hands...and believe me, I'm not that old..lol. anyways, here's a card with a sweet pinwheel:

early bird hi

Abbey S said...

Here is my pinwheel layout :) http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11311

isabel said...

http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11312

Davinie, hope I can't enter several times to your challenge !!!
I did this layout this afternoon for your May Project and for your pinwheels challenge... only thinking of you ;-)
thanks

Leanne said...

This was so much fun! The pinwheels are gorgeous. You can find mine here...

www.leanneallinson.blogspot.com/2009/06/create.html

Lisa said...

Love the pinwheels! Thanks for the chance to win the great punch.

Linda Beeson said...

How totally adorable - what a really cute accent!

Deana said...

Thanks, Davinie, for a FUN tutorial! Here's what I did with my pinwheel...

http://deanaboston.typepad.com/divalogues/2009/06/im-sew-happy-its-the-last-day-of-school-.html

TFL! :-)

Jennifer.T said...

I made a bedroom door hanger for my DD, here it is: http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11381
This was so much fun to make, thanks for the challenge Davinie!

Rhian said...

http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11387

here is a card I made with a pinwheel on, I think Pinwheels will be on most of my cards this summer, I love them, thanks Davine.

Anonymous said...

Fabulous tutorial :) ... Had to try my hand with the pinwheel. http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11404

thanks Dav!

isabel said...

cool challenge
thanks davinie...

http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11427

isabel said...

http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11428

a christmas card... I'm not late !!!

isabel said...

http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11429
and this one for you... un bisou de Paris !!!

Zorina said...

http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11434

ok,dokee--- here's mine. that punch is really cute.. wink, wink!
TFL!

Anonymous said...

Great challenge - I think these are my new addiction!

Here's my page:

http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11471

Rhian said...

http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11492

Here is another one.

Diana said...

My daughter and I had so much fun making pinwheels! Thanks for the challenge! Here is my card:

http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11477

Denise said...

I posted a couple pinwheels here:

http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11495

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for this wonderful tutorial!!! This was so fun!
I made a layout with a pinwheel on it - here it is:
http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11503

Aubree said...

I just love these pinwheels. I posted my layout for the challenge to the gallery http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11506

The pinwheels remind of the ones we used to make a kids with straws so I just had to include straws on the layout too!

Unknown said...

Wow, this was fun! I love pinwheels! Here's my LO:

http://www.studiocalico.com/forums/galleries/show/11537

Abby said...

Thanks for the tutorial and fun challenge! Here's my {hi} card: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lymO9Zy5zPM/Sis2OrIkm4I/AAAAAAAAAWk/IdQ8iW8Eb64/s1600-h/IMG_5181.JPG

Abby said...

I had so much fun that I made two! Hope it's okay. Here's my "Thinking of You" card: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lymO9Zy5zPM/Sis2OTc_2dI/AAAAAAAAAWc/aYeXEze-9nc/s1600-h/IMG_5180.JPG

Thanks again for the inspiration and the chance to win!

Mary Jo said...

thanks for the tutorial, Davinie!! :0)