Easter is one of my favorite holidays to celebrate with my children. This year I wanted to make a centerpiece for our table that has some fun built in. The built in fun comes in the form of pinwheels. I wasn’t too excited about having my kids running around with pinwheels with pins in them so I made my pinwheels pinless by using pipe cleaners instead of a pin.

Supplies:

• 1 12×12 sheet of double sided Easter themed paper
• 1 coordinating pipe cleaner
• sharp pointed scissors
• 3 green paper straws
• small metal container (bought at Dollar Tree)
• Easter grass
• transparent tape
• adhesive (I used ATG tape)
• 4 plastic eggs (optional)
• 1/8 inch wooden dowel (36 inches bought at Michaels)
• ribbon

Directions:

1. Use my free Silhouette Studio cut file to cut out three pinwheels squares and three small circles from the 12×12 double sided paper. This cut file is only for your personal use. If you download it, I would appreciate a comment or a repin. NOTE: I did not have double sided Easter themed paper so I used Elmer’s spray adhesive and created double sided paper from coordinating paper that I had in my stash. When I sent the file to the Silhouette, I used the cardstock setting because of the thickness of my paper.

2. Add adhesive to the corners of the paper with the small holes. Then take each corner with a hole and line that hole up with the hole in the center of the square. Make sure to press down so that the adhesive will hold. Add adhesive to the small circle and then line up the hole with the hole in the center of the square.

3. Insert the pipe cleaner through the hole in the center and bend the end like a candy cane. Then close up the candy cane so that the pipe cleaner turn into a small circle. Pull the pipe cleaner taut through the back.

4. Use scissors to poke a hole through both sides of the paper straw. Be careful here because I didn’t know my own strength and poked right through the straw and made a gigantic hole. 😉

5. Insert the pipe cleaner through the straw. Cut off the excess and repeat the candy cane curl.

6. Repeat Steps 2 through 5 for the other two pinwheels.

7. I wanted the pinwheels to be at different heights for the centerpiece but the paper straws are all the same height. I solved this problem by using a 1/8 inch wooden dowel. I had one pinwheel with no wooden dowel, one with a short wooden dowel and another with a longer wooden dowel inside the straw. The pipe cleaner stops the dowel from going all the way through the straw but if you are worried about it, you can put a small piece of tape across the top of the straw.

8. I added adhesive to the the back of ribbon and wrapped it around the container.

9. I wanted my pinwheels to stay in one place so I taped them to the side of the metal container with transparent tape. Then I added the Easter grass and some plastic eggs. Voila! Now I have a fun and eye pleasing centerpiece for our Easter table.

You may ask if these pinwheels spin… Yes they do and vigorously too!

My daughter loved playing with her pinwheel!

If you are looking for Easter crafts, you may also like my Easter card made with scrapbook paper scraps. Thank you for stopping by.

P.S. If you are putting this centerpiece outside, you may want to put something underneath the Easter grass to weigh it down so it won’t tip over if it gets windy.