DIY Pinwheel Tutorial and Template

Making your own pinwheel is a great way to add a bit of summer whimsy to any yard or garden. With just a few simple materials, you can make a colorful, spinning decoration that’s sure to bring a smile to anyone who sees it. In this post, we’ll look at the steps needed to craft your very own DIY pinwheel. So grab your supplies and let’s get started! ​

This is a quick and easy craft tutorial that you can use to make a pinwheel for any occasion. Try making a pinwheel for your garden, front yard display, to use for baby showers, add a fun pop of color to your birthday party decor with some colorful pinwheels, and more! So many reasons to take a few minutes to make a fun pinwheel. 

This DIY Pinwheel tutorial and template shows you how easy it is to make a fun pinwheel to use in your decor or for parties!  

The main thing that you need to make a pinwheel is a template, which I’ve included for you to download and print below.  You can also find this printable template anytime in my FREE Printable Library.

Pinwheel Template

SUPPLIES TO MAKE A PINWHEEL

So, let’s get started!   In addition to the template, here’s what you will need:

Card Stock Paper – if you don’t have card stock, you could also use origami paper or any other decorative piece of paper, or other type of paper that you wish to use

5/16″ Wood Craft Dowels

Tacks or Push Pins

Scissors

Tack Hammer

For your pinwheel, you will want both sides of your paper to have a design.  Or, you could use a solid color card stock.  I made sheet music pinwheels.  I used a free sheet music graphic that I found at The Graphics Fairy website, downloaded it, and used my home printer to print it on both sides of my card stock.  Here it is if you would like to use it too!

How To Make A Pinwheel

Whatever paper you decide to use for your DIY pinwheels, you need to feed it through your home printer and print the template onto just one side of the paper.  Once your template is printed onto the paper you choose, cut out the pinwheel template. Be sure to cut the diagonal cuts on the diagonal lines on the free printable pinwheel template. 

Now it’s time to form the pinwheel.  Start at the bottom and bring each left hand corner to the center of the paper and hold in place.  

Then, take your upholstery tack (or push pin) and poke a hole through the center of the pinwheel.  Just be sure to go through all five layers.  

Now use your tack hammer to gently hammer the tack into your wood dowel.  I like to pre-hammer a tack into the dowel to make a small hole where I want to attach the pinwheel.  That way, it’s easy to insert the tack of the finished pinwheel into the center hole.  And, don’t hammer it all the way in, because you want there to be a space for the pinwheel to spin.

Can I jazz these pinwheels up some? 

If you want to add some sparkle to your pinwheel, use a small paintbrush to apply white glue to the edges of the pinwheel and sprinkle with glitter.   

Additionally, you could add a small bead to the center of the tack. If using plain colorful paper to make colorful paper pinwheels you could add some small beads to the edges of the pinwheel to give it a more decorative and finished look.  

You can also use different colors of paper or colorful ribbons and strings to attach the pinwheel. Get creative and see what kind of designs you can come up with! 

Can I make a smaller version? 

Yes, you can! If you don’t want to make such a large version, you can scale this down. You can also make a slightly smaller version and use a paper straw or bamboo skewer to attach the tack on the back of the pinwheel to.

Instead of a tack, depending on the weight of what you’re using, you could use a brass fastener. So many options to use to make using this free pinwheel template. If keeping this indoor, you could use some hot glue instead of a tack for this pinwheel craft.

If letting grade school kids make these, just grab a pile of cheap construction paper, craft paper, or scrapbook paper and let them make this simple pinwheel. They could even write nice thoughts on each one and use them as Mother’s Day gifts or positive affirmations to remind themselves of good things during the school day.  

These DIY paper pinwheels would be a fun project for the kiddos and other little hands in your life! Happy Summer!