Patriotic Paper Fans

Learn how to make patriotic paper fans using a few simple supplies and your Cricut cutting machine.

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Hey there, crafty pals! Are you ready to dive into a fun and festive DIY project that will make your patriotic spirit soar? We’ve got just the thing for you: making amazing patriotic paper fans using your trusty Cricut cutting machine!

These red, white, and blue paper fans are fun and festive and can be used for any patriotic holiday! You can also change up the paper and make them for other special occasions.

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✂️What You’ll Need:

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How to Make Paper Fans With a Cricut Machine

Upload the file to Design Space. Change the color of the file to blue. Insert a rectangle and cover the holes. Click both layers and weld it together.

Take a score line, stretch it long to fit the length of the project. You will duplicate the score line and place them on each hump line. After they are in place, you will select everything and click attach.

You will then duplicate the whole layer and make sure it is 11″ across. That will be the size of the large fan. Choose cardstock for the material when you are ready to cut.

You will also need circles for this project. Make the circles 1.5 inches for the larger rosettes. Duplicate them to make six circles. If you have extra room on your cutting mat you can add the circles or use a scrap piece. I used reversible cardstock so you can pick which side you want to use.

Gather all of your supplies together that I have listed above. You are going to be making seven rosettes. Two that are 11″, one that is 9″, one that is 6″, and three that are 5″.

When you are putting this in your machine make sure you put the scoring blade in first. When it is done scoring you will replace it with the cutting blade. Do not take your mat out! Just follow the prompts on your screen.

Once that is done cutting, we will add in another sheet of paper. It takes four sections to make the fan. As you shrink the design down the 6″ and the 3″ you can fit all of them on one piece of paper. But the 11″ and the 9″ will take two pieces of paper per rosette. While that is cutting you can be folding the ones that have already cut. There is a strip of paper that you fold over on the end, you can cut those off if you’d like.

Now we need to cut our circles. Take a piece of scrap paper that is double sided and load it into your machine. We will cut the 1.5″ circles first. You will do a circle on the front of the rosette and a circle on the back.

Now we will assemble the large circle. Once you learn this process it is all just repeating the process. There are four sections to make a circle. So we are going to glue them all together. Make sure you use enough hot glue to give you enough time to line them up.

After you have the long strip you can put the ends together, hold them with one hand, pinch it, push it together and seal the ends. While it is squished together, hold it with your hand and hot glue the center an place a dot in the center of the paper on the glue.

After you glue the front dot, turn it over and add some glue to the center and choose another dot and push it on the glue.

Repeat the process for the second 11″ circle, choose whatever paper pattern you would like.

Now we are going to go back to design space, grab the image and shrink it down to 9″ wide. Then you will cut out another two pages for this size rosette. Put the rosettes together in the same manner as above.

When you have finished the 9″ one, go back to design space, you will shrink them down to 6″, you can duplicate all two sections and put four sections on one paper. The same for the 5″ ones. You will make 1″ circles for these two size rosettes. Follow the same instructions as above to put them together. I made two pinwheels at once on my cutting mat with two different cardstock patterns.

Now we can start to assemble our project. I used pipe cleaners to hold them in place. First you need to decide where you want the pinwheels to go. I had to make one more rosette because I had wire showing. You will hot glue pipe cleaners to the back of your rosettes. Make sure to add a decent amount of hot glue on the back before you add the pipe cleaner. Let them cool.

I flipped my wreath base over so the flat side is to the top so it holds the rosettes a little better. The back will be messy and that is okay. I wanted my two large ones to be overlapping a little bit. I like the 12″ wreath frame better. Just add the rosettes where you would like them and secure them with the pipe cleaners.

Once you are happy with your placement you’ll be good to go. You can use an extra pipe cleaner to hang it if you’d like!