Independently Crafty

I caught the bug, recently, to do some 4th of July crafts. A few weeks ago, the kids were sick, and after spending the most of the week cooped up inside, I was going a little stir crazy. I had found some cute crafting ideas while I was blog surfing, so I thought it was a great time to get to work. The first craft was a ribbon wreath, flag style: My inspiration was found at http://thelongthread.com/?p=1310. Theirs was a cute Halloween wreath, so I just did a different twist on it. I also used a 14" styrofoam wreath instead of a 12". Cute, huh? It was a bit tricky to hid the white styrofoam underneath. If I'd been smart, I would have painted my wreath first, then tied on the ribbons. But I didn't want to make another trip to the craft store just for paint, so I simply slid coordinating ribbon under each section as I tied it. A bit more work, but worth it.

Originally, I didn't have the stars on there. As I was driving away from my house the next day, I realized my wreath didn't look so much like an American flag as it did a giant peppermint. Delicious---but not very patriotic. So, I cut out some stars on my silhouette, and painted over them with liquid glass to make them pop, and to keep the cardstock from getting weathered too quickly. We'll see how long they last. But, they definitely gave it more of a flag feel, and less of an I-wanna-lick-it-to-see-how-it-tastes feel.

For quite some time, I've had several 2x4s plaguing my garage. My first thought was to just throw them into the garbage, but then my crafty wheels began to spin, and I decided they could be used for something. I used some of them for Family Blocks that I made a while back, but still had plenty left to do this craft for myself and a few friends:

My ispiration was found at http://www.howdoesshe.com/cheap-home-decor. I ended up cutting my blue colored blocks a bit differently then they had suggested on the blog. I am totally crazy and anal about things being symetrical, so I just couldn't have my flag be a none rectangle. Instead of cutting it at 3 and 1/2", I cut two blocks at just 3". Worked great.

And voila! My house is ready for the 4th of July. Bring on the fireworks!