apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

The items you'll need to make the pinwheels are:

• Various pieces of paper


• Scissors


• Push-pin or Pins*


• Pencils with erasers

What makes your pinwheels look fabulous is the paper you use. We love to use Japanese, bookbinding and handmade papers which look much snazzier than your average construction paper. Our very good friend is a bookbinder, so we are fortunate to get all of her paper scraps for crafts. However, singles sheets of nice patterned paper are usually inexpensive. Places like the Paper Source often sell baggies filled with a variety of usable paper scraps as well.

1. To begin your pinwheel, cut your paper into squares. The easiest way to do this is to fold the lower left corner diagonally towards the right side. Cut the paper that is exposed along the top and it should leave you with a perfect square.

2. Once you have your square, fold it corner to corner, the unfold it and fold it again corner to corner, the opposite side.

3. With your scissors, cut along fold lines stopping about half-way down.

4. Gather every other corner and bring it down towards the center.

5. Insert your pin into the center, making sure you go through all corners.

6. Without letting go of the pin or paper, push the pin though your eraser. *If you are using regular pins, rather than push pins, make sure you cut down the pin with a pair of pliers before you begin. Cut it short enough so that the pin can go through the eraser, but not out the other side.

You're done. Now you can go nuts and fill your entire home with pinwheels -- but not so many that people will be worried about you.