Fourth of July Decorations

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Traditionally Steve and I have invited a few friends over for the Fourth of July. We do not usually bother with fireworks or dealing with the crowds. (Although many of our neighbors put on their own shows which are sometimes even better than the professional ones.) Now that we have Hazel we tend to invite friends with young children. Hazel and I start preparations for the barbeque by making decorations. (To see a few of our ideas from last year click here.) Last year Hazel was very afraid of the wind after our Father's Day painting incident. We actually had to move the party inside because she threw a fit about our decorations being outside and being afraid they would blow away in the wind. This year I'm thinking about more heavy decorations.

I bought a navy frame at Michaels on clearance and found some red and white striped scrapbook paper there as well. I cut the scrapbook paper to be part of the United States flag and mod podged it on. Then we put stickers on the navy part that was still showing and we added a USA sticker to the stripes. Then we framed this great printable I got from Lolly Jane. It is in the image of the United States flag but has the names of  the states in alphabetical order for the stripes. She has free printables in different color combinations. When I saw it I knew I wanted to do a project like this. We will use it as a decoration and then Hazel wants it in her bedroom.

Then we also made some holders for our plasticware. We used some frozen juice containers. (They were Welch's brand and made of plastic.) First I covered each one with white paper since the purple from the grape juice label (which was not removable) was so dark. I just Mod Podged the paper on.

Then I cut scrapbook paper to fit around each one. I did one in the red and white strip and one in navy with white stars. After coating them with Mod Podge I left them to dry over night. We added sparkly ribbons today and stickers to one. I like how they came out.

We have some more decorations in the works. Stay tuned. Do you have plans for the Fourth?

Oh, and a great activity for the kids for the Fourth. Squidoo has free patriotic clip art images including an American flag to color in. Stay tuned for more ideas for things for the kids as well. I have many in my mind and pinned.

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