Graduation Prep - Part 3...Pinwheels

Before I start, let me give credit where credit is due...the inspiration for this project came from something I found on Pinterest that was originally posted on Miss Mustard Seed (that's the link for her original tutorial)...I made mine slightly differently so I am also posting my tutorial.

The grade 8 class has been talking about making choices and choosing the direction they are going to go in the next couple of years, so I thought the following quote would be a good jumping off point for graduation:  "I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination." - Jimmy Dean.  I didn't think sailboats would work very well for this particular class, so I decided to go with pinwheels instead.

 

I made two kinds of pinwheels...some on card stock, without a stick, and some using pages from an old picture book (the same book we used for the art show interactive activity) that are on a stick.

So, for the basic pinwheel shape, you just simply cut a square (I cut the card stock pinwheels 6" square and the book page pinwheels 4" square) and then cut diagonal lines part way across from each corner (I used 3" cuts for the 6" squares and 2 1/4" cuts for the 4" squares).  I will continue the rest using the book page paper, and then hop back at the end for the card stock.

 

 Once you have your squares cut, use white craft glue to glue down each point to the middle.

 Then paint on glue to the edges - I did two points at a time, which is about how much I could handle without making a huge mess.

Then sprinkle glitter onto the wet glue, rotate it, and continue on with the other two points.

I let mine dry on an open cereal box to try to contain some of the glitter...

 ...and to more easily move them all away from the cat.

Before I glittered them, I actually spent a couple of hours trying to figure out a way to make them so they would spin using just the materials I had on hand.  I couldn't.  So, I just hot glued these large skewers onto the back.  Incidentally, I probably spent way way more time than I needed to looking for just the right pages to cut.  I wanted a picture on the back and words on the front.

 All lined up and ready for the next step...24 of them!

 I printed out the quote on plain white paper and cut them into strips, making sure to align the wording to leave a blank space on the left and right margins.  I rolled the right margin around a skewer...

 And then wrapped the left margin around the pinwheel skewer, hot glued it on, and called it done.

For the card stock pinwheels, I glittered them while flat using glitter glue.  Note: the glitter glue I had years ago was in a skinny little tube that you just squeezed on in a thin line.  The glue I bought this time had about a 1/3" hole at the top, so I ended up having to brush it all on with a paint brush anyways.  I like the white glue and glitter results much better.  Then I used a small punch and hammer to punch a hole through each point and through the center and used a brad to hold it in place.

 

I left half of them un-glittered as I'm not too sure how boys feel about glitter everywhere, plus, the blue glitter wouldn't show up very well on the black pinwheels anyways.

I almost forgot the tally:  The paper pinwheels (24 in total) cost me a grand total of $1.00 for the glitter.  I happened to have the skewers on hand and I always have white glue in the house.  The card stock pinwheels cost $1.50 for the glitter glue, I had a package of brads and the card stock from another project (I used 5 different colours).  Each 12" x 12" card stock made 4 pinwheels in case you want to try and need to buy some card stock first.  Personally, I prefer the book page pinwheels by far!

Come on back next week to see how I tie the centerpieces all together...

Linking up with:  Frugal by Choice, Cheap by Necessity
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                          Eco Kids Tuesday at Like Mama Like Daughter

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