Patriotic Paper Plate Pinwheels… Now there’s a mouthful! Try saying it five times fast. LOL! Seriously I had no idea what to call these things so I pretty much just put in the title all the adjectives I could think of to describe these easy July 4th decor. During our photoshoot I kept calling them simply Danglers, and they kind also of remind me of wind socks. What would you call them?
I have been hinting for a couple weeks at a July 4th project that I’ve been working on with Chinet. Well I’m almost ready to spill that beans — look for the full post with loads of new July 4th decor printables very soon. Today I wanted to whet your appetite by showing you one of my favorite details. The tutorial for this easy July 4th decor was a bit more involved then I wanted to include in my full July 4th barbecue post so I decided to break it off and share a peek at the fun to come!
Would you have ever guessed that these are paper plates? It’s amazing what some paper and ribbons can do. This easy July 4th Decor idea is super inexpensive and creates a big WOW! If you have older kiddos, you should definitely enlist their help in making a whole bunch of these Paper Plate Pinwheels to hang from a tree or over your backyard patio.
TO MAKE: You will need my free printable Patriotic Pinwheel Templates and a stack of Chinet® Classic White™ paper plates. I had planned to just use the larger 10-inch Dinner plates (shown directly above) to maximize their impact, but then I tried them on the smaller 8-inch All-Occasion plates too, and I really loved how the pinwheels filled up the plates. I could not decide which way was better so I used both! I really like the way it looks with the mixed sizes.
You will also need a glue gun and ribbon in patriotic colors. I love the nicer grosgrain ribbon and hate throwing it away; so I keep ribbon from gifts, etc. to recycle. I raided that bin first before cutting into any fresh ribbon.
Now here’s the step by step…
1. Print out our free printable pinwheel templates on regular paper. I have created 5 different pinwheel template designs. (Also in the download kit are the Patriotic Party Punchables template that you’ll want to print on cardstock to use in Step No. 5) | 2. cut out both strips on the template, leaving the margin on the left side. Use double-sided tape to attach strips together, creating one long strip. | 3. On the short end, accordian fold the entire strip using 1-cm folds. | 4. Use more tape to attach the ends together, forming a cone shape. | 5. Press the center down to create the circular fan, with the white stripe in the center. Hot glue a circle to the pinwheel’s center to hold it’s shape — we used our Party Punchables template to make decorative circles. You can glue the circle to the front or back of the pinwheel depending on the look you want. We did it both ways. | 6. Glue the back of the fan to the back of a Chinet® Classic White™ plate — we used the larger 10-inch ones. If desired, you could paint the plates beforehand. Add ribbons along the bottom edge and attach to the back top a long piece of jute twine or more ribbon for hanging later. Finish by attaching a second plate on the reverse. I chose to put another pinwheel on this plate as well to make mine double-sided. It’s a bit of extra cutting and folding, but I think it was well worth it!
The pinwheel designs and all my new July 4th printables (Coming Soon!) still coordinate perfectly with the free printable USA Banner and the USA Parade Fans I’ve shared previously.
Download the Patriotic Pinwheel Templates
