Ever since making giant pinwheels for a photoshoot I did on the beach last summer, I have been a bit obsessed with speciality paper and scrapbook pads. If you haven’t seen them, you can find lots of choice in Hobbycraft and online. For the giant pinwheels I used a K&COMPANY book called ‘Sparkly Sweet’.
Giant pinwheels
Anyway, I have been working on props for a new photoshoot this week and needed somemore paper. This time I got Grace Taylor’s Vintage scrapbook pad which has got some really lovely patterns.
a small selection
I don’t really have a name for what I have been making this week – well there is a ‘proper’ name for them – but I don’t like it. I first found them online while looking at different types of bunting where they were being called pinwheels. But to me these are not pinwheels, pinwheels are what is pictured above. So because I like different things to have different names I’m going to call them fans. Please tell me if you have a better name as I know is this quite a poor one!
I started off by making a few practice fans and below is a step-by-step guide and photos of how I did this. It’s nice and easy.
I was working with card thatis 12″ x 12″. For a small fan you need to two strips 3″ x 12″, and for a large fan you need four 6″ x 12″. Basically, the wider the strip the long it needs to be. Cut your strips and then start to fold them over to create a fan effect. Once you have folded both, glue the ends together to create one longer strip. Then glue the other ends to create a circle of card like below.
how to
The next step is to push the bottom of the ring together and pull the top down and out to flatten the ring.I used ZapaGap glue around the centre of the fan and placed a button on top to hold it in place. ZapaGap is not a glue for kids though, it’s the kind of glue that sticks your fingers together! Belive me I know.
tada
After I had the process down to a fine art, I went on to make the fans I need for my shoot next week. These are going to create a feature above a sweetie table, but would also be great for bunting, a backdrop for a food table or to create a feature wall at a party.
can you guess the theme
Everyone keep your fingers crossed for a dry day on Monday 9th July! Otherwise we are going to have alot of wet kids and sweets.
I would love to see examples if you use these for you party so do pop them over to ellie@buttonsparties.co.uk.