Patriotic Pinwheel Wreath

It's been a while since I did a craft post.  I've been a busy baking bee lately and my stomach needed a butter break so I decided to get crafty today.

I pinned this Pinwheel Wreath tutorial from Michaels on Pinterest months ago and finally got around to making it.  I took some liberties with it based on the crafty items I already had in my house and the theme I was going for.  I really wanted something to hang on the door this summer so I went with a red, white & blue theme and I think it turned out super cute!!!

Supplies
This is what I used, but you can certainly make adjustments based on what you've got hanging around...

• Cardboard Circle - 14 1/2" on the outside and 11" on the inside.
• 24 strips of paper measuring 12" x 1 1/2" (I used 12 in red colors and 12 in blue colors - you're gluing 2 strips together to make 12 pinwheels, so the strips that get glued together should be a matching pattern or color)
• 24  1 1/2" circles punched out of paper (I used 6 in red colors, 6 in blue colors and 12 of any color for the back side)
• up to 12 small flowers, buttons or brads (I used 9 total and left a few of my pinwheels plain)
• Approx. 125 1" stars punched out of paper
• 12" Wired Ribbon
• Glue Stick
• Glue Gun

 Step 1:

The first step was to cut of my cardboard circle from an old cardboard box I had lying around.  I used 2 different sides platters to trace the circle and then cut it out using scissors.  The edges don't need to be perfect since you're covering them up anyway.

Step 2:

Take 2 of the 12" x 1 1/2" paper strips and fold them in an accordion style every 1/2".

Glue the 2 strips together using a glue gun, making sure that the spot where you glue them together still creates a continuous accordion.

Step 3:

Glue the two ends of your long accordion strip together with the glue gun to form a circle (depending on how many folds you made on each strip, you may need to cut off one fold at one end to make a perfect circle).

Press the center of the accordion circle down and use the glue gun to secure one of the paper circles to the pinwheel (I had the best success doing the back side first).  Then flip it over and glue another circle to the front side of the pinwheel.

Embellish the middle of the circle on the front side with a brad, flower or button if  you wish.

Step 4:

Repeat steps 2 & 3 with the remaining paper strips until you have 12 pinwheels.


Step 5:

I wanted the back of my wreath to be cute too so I used a glue stick to glue paper stars to the back of my cardboard circle.  I used a couple different shades of red and blue along with white and tried to keep them in order... red, white and blue... in two rows around the cardboard circle.

I used approximately 100 paper stars on the back side of the wreath.

Step 6:

Glue a few stars to a 3" section on the front of the wreath and tie the ribbon over that part to form the hanger for your wreath.

Step 7:

Use the hot glue gun to glue the pinwheels to the front of the wreath.  I alternated mine between the red and blue versions.

Step 8:

I had some spots in between the pinwheels where I could still see the cardboard, so I glued a few paper stars in those spots to cover up any exposed cardboard.

See how there is a window in the top of the door?  That's why I wanted the back to be pretty too because you can see it from the inside of the house through that window.

I think this turned out so cute!  Especially on my red front door!  I <3 America.

Julie