Pleated Pinwheel Party Decor

I am obsessed with my Martha Stewart scoring board. It makes accordion folding a breeze.

I made two sizes of finished pleated circles with my scrapbook paper, and not until the end did I realize I should have left the page whole, scored the whole thing, and then cut it into strips, whoops. That's what I will do next time. :)

I scored every inch on one side, then flipped the paper and again scored every inch in between the existing scores, so in the end it's scored every half-inch but they automatically fold back and forth, accordion style.

If you don't have a scoring board, I seriously recommend it, I love mine, and it comes with a mini bone folder.

Here are some nicely accordioned strips, ready to be gathered into a medallion.

I cut some of my 12 x 12 inch sheets into four inch strips, others into three inch strips.

I found that it will take the whole sheet, that is three of the 4x12 inch strips to make one of the 4-inch radius medallions. By cutting the 12 x 12 inch sheets into three inch strips, I could make two 3-inch radius medallions.

This is how you want the end of the strip to look. So the first half-inch in should be scored with the pattern facing up. That will make it fold down, creating what you see above and wasting as little paper as possible.

If you score this way, so that the last fold is a valley and not a mountain, you will have to overlap when attaching your strips together, which is not a big deal, but I like to conserve paper and not waste it in overlap.