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Summer Crafting Fun With The Kids

Summer is fast approaching, and we are giddy with anticipation in our house. I can’t wait to spend some extended hours outside with my daughter, after the endless cold, wind and rainy this spring, and with that in mind am making lists of fun diy garden games and Summer Crafts to keep us both entertained.

Summer wouldn’t be summer without colorful pinwheels spinning in the breeze so to get us Summer Fit we’ve started making Giant Color Popping Paper Pinwheels, ready to plant in the flower beds as soon as Sammy Sunshine decides to visit and stay awhile! and yes Sammy we want you to stay for a long while!

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The essence of these color popping pinwheels is the strong color contrast. Onto colorful craft paper we glued some contrasting wrapping paper but you have a few options when making yours

– Invite your kids to paint, stamp, draw on the craft paper to add a gorgeous individual art patterns to each pinwheel

– Layer rows of washi tape or duct tape on the craft paper to add your contrast side

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begin by downloading the pinwheel cutting template here

Reduce or enlarge the template for a variety of pinwheel sizes, palm size or giant…. you decide.

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First glue your contrast paper onto your craft paper, and with a scissors or craft knife use the cutting template to cut out your pinwheel square.

Cut diagonal lines in from each corner as shown (don’t worry the guidelines for the length of line are on the template)

Next punch every second corner, as shown, and another hole in the centre of the pinwheel.

And then start folding in the corners.

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I put a drop of glue under each corner to hold the corners together while we worked on the handle – Miss7 didn’t have the patience to stay holding!!

Make sure the holes are all lined up.

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now it’s time to make the stick and spinning mechanism….

For small palm size pinwheels it’s super easy – just bend a pin and stick it in to the top of a pencil eraser!! so cool!

For the giant ones I used a wooden rod, eraser, pin and button.

And it’s as easy as this – chop a cube off the eraser, dig out a little hole in the eraser and push in the stick.



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Thread the pin through the pinwheel holes, I used a button in front for two reasons, one because it was a cute one, and two the button would prevent the pin head making it’s way back through the holes.



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When the pin feeds back through the holes it simply continues through the eraser cube and depending on how long the pin is you might need to bend it back through the eraser to protect little hands from any pointy bits!





Happy crafting for summer

Michelle xx