Valentine's Day Pinwheels

Pinwheel from Oriental Trading

It's almost Valentine's day!  For me, that means helping my son get Valentines ready for his kindergarten class.  Of course, thanks to Pinterest, I was looking for something cute to do.   Fortunately for me, a few weeks ago I got the latest Oriental Trading Company catalog and saw these super cute pinwheels.  36 of them for $10.50?  Sign me up!  I had seen some really cute candy ideas; however, this year, Valentine's day falls after the start of Lent, so my son's teacher sent out a friendly reminder that a lot of kids give up candy for Lent.  (she's on top of it!)  Pinwheels seemed like the perfect alternative.  I dressed them up with a tag, and here is how I did it.

I bought this Martha Stewart punch around the page,  it is super cute.  I really wanted the dancing hearts one, but Michael's didn't have it so I had to let that dream go.
I got home, and started punching.  I have used paper punches before, but not a punch around the page one.  There is a learning curve, and the dimensions of your paper need to be perfect in order for all of the punches to line up correctly.  I did a 3.25" square, which worked out quite nicely, since after I did the corner punches I only had to punch one time on each side with the bigger punch.  Convenient, since I have to punch out 25 of these things and I would like to retain the use of my hands by the end of it.

The pinwheels are red and silver, and I really wanted the background paper to be red, yet somehow, despite my stacks of card stock, I don't have any true red card stock.  I have every other shade of red, but not red red.  Crazy.  I debated going back to Michael's, but quickly came to my senses and found a sparkly silver glitter paper that has been lingering in my stash for years.

I punched the 3.25" square of silver cardstock:

Look at the pretty little hearts left behind!  I am saving those for a future project.

Next, I cut out a 2.25" square of white card stock.  I inked the edges using a Martha Stewart petal ink pad.  I like the smaller ones for inking the edges of paper, you just lightly swipe it along the cut edges to add dimension.  Then I stamped it with a "Happy Valentine's Day" stamp that I also picked up at Michael's today for a dollar.  I had tried embossing it in silver ink, but it looked terrible. 

Next, I used some pop dots to stick the stamped square onto the silver punched square, tied it on to the pinwheel with some ribbon, and I was done!  Only 24 more to go!

Pinwheel from Oriental Trading

It's almost Valentine's day!  For me, that means helping my son get Valentines ready for his kindergarten class.  Of course, thanks to Pinterest, I was looking for something cute to do.   Fortunately for me, a few weeks ago I got the latest Oriental Trading Company catalog and saw these super cute pinwheels.  36 of them for $10.50?  Sign me up!  I had seen some really cute candy ideas; however, this year, Valentine's day falls after the start of Lent, so my son's teacher sent out a friendly reminder that a lot of kids give up candy for Lent.  (she's on top of it!)  Pinwheels seemed like the perfect alternative.  I dressed them up with a tag, and here is how I did it.

I bought this Martha Stewart punch around the page,  it is super cute.  I really wanted the dancing hearts one, but Michael's didn't have it so I had to let that dream go.
I got home, and started punching.  I have used paper punches before, but not a punch around the page one.  There is a learning curve, and the dimensions of your paper need to be perfect in order for all of the punches to line up correctly.  I did a 3.25" square, which worked out quite nicely, since after I did the corner punches I only had to punch one time on each side with the bigger punch.  Convenient, since I have to punch out 25 of these things and I would like to retain the use of my hands by the end of it.

The pinwheels are red and silver, and I really wanted the background paper to be red, yet somehow, despite my stacks of card stock, I don't have any true red card stock.  I have every other shade of red, but not red red.  Crazy.  I debated going back to Michael's, but quickly came to my senses and found a sparkly silver glitter paper that has been lingering in my stash for years.

I punched the 3.25" square of silver cardstock:

Look at the pretty little hearts left behind!  I am saving those for a future project.

Next, I cut out a 2.25" square of white card stock.  I inked the edges using a Martha Stewart petal ink pad.  I like the smaller ones for inking the edges of paper, you just lightly swipe it along the cut edges to add dimension.  Then I stamped it with a "Happy Valentine's Day" stamp that I also picked up at Michael's today for a dollar.  I had tried embossing it in silver ink, but it looked terrible. 

Next, I used some pop dots to stick the stamped square onto the silver punched square, tied it on to the pinwheel with some ribbon, and I was done!  Only 24 more to go!