Simple Windmill As Decor

Hi All,

In this instructable, I will share how I made this simple and elegant windmill decor for my home using coffee stirrer sticks. This project takes time and patience.

• Small popsicle sticks or coffee stirrer sticks
• Wooden sticks/dowel 4mm diameter
• Regular popsicle sticks
• Cardbox
• PVA glue
• Paper tape
• Superglue
• Cutting plyers
• Some 3D-printed parts ( can be made from sticks as well

• For the tower, we need a large piece of a cardboard
• Draw a trapezium of 3"x 1.5" with a height of 12"
• Cut 6 pieces of the trapezium, tee will be the walls
• Cut 1.5", 3" and 2" hexagons as shown
• Using paper tape, glue all wall pieces together, and use the hexagon pieces to give the right hexagonal shape
• Leave the tower to dry for 2 hours

• I used coffee stirrer sticks to cover the tower horizontally
• I used a pliers to cut the sticks to size
• And used PVA glue to stick it in place, one by one
• To reduce wastage, I used smaller pieces together
• Leave this to dry for 1 hour
• I did not cover the base or the top of the tower
• Also, stick additional sticks vertically on the edges to hide any gaps
• Use paper tape to hold the sticks in place, where needed

• For the top, I made it in two parts
• The bottom part was a 2" hexagon and walls of 1" height
• Fols and glue the walls to make the bottom
• The top cover is a hexagonal cone that is glued to the base
• Drill a hole of 4mm, we will use this hole to mount the windmill blades
• Cover each edge with wooden sticks as shown

• Use a sharp knife and split the wooden sticks into thin sticks
• We need about 12 thin sticks full length and several for the ribs of the blade
• on a cardboard piece, stick the thin sticks (full length) separated by a gap of 0.5"
• Now at a 0.5" gap, stick thin sticks vertically
• Let this dry for 1 hour
• I used a 3d printed part to lock all 4 blades together, as shown

• Using regular popsicle sticks, create a hexagon floor
• Cut wooden 6 dowels of 1" length to make pillars
• Superglue them in place and stick 6 thin sticks over them
• Let it dry
• Based on the final length, add more pillars
• This is the only part where I had to use superglue

• on thin cardboard, stick small pieces of sticks to make doors and windows as shown
• This cardboard is the same that we used to make the tower and the top
• One can choose to do more details, by adding handles etc(using clay)

• Place the balcony over the tower,
• Adjust its height, by removing the inner parts of the balcony
• Stick the top on the tower using PVA glue
• Fix the Windmill blade
• Cover the windmill with varnish for protection
• We are done. Place the windmill on a shelf and admire its beauty and your hard work