4th of July Decor

Summer's here and that means the 4th is nearing.  It also means our air conditioner decided to break.  I'm trying to ignore the sweltering heat by working on some small projects around the house until we get it replaced.  The key word is small; I don't want to work up a sweat doing anything too strenuous.  So I decided to dig my 4th of July decor out of the basement.

I hung my rag wreath on the front door.  This was a super simple project and turned out really cute.  All you need to do is tie strips of 1 inch fabric around a Styrofoam wreath.  Add a little ribbon to hang it up with and a painted wooden "4" and you're all set!  

I put my stars and stripes mason jars out next.  I just used some acrylic craft paint to paint stars and stripes on some mason jars.  Once the paint was dry, I used some sandpaper to scuff up the paint a bit and make it a little more rustic.  I added some flower and plant clipping from my yard and ended up with a pretty cute centerpiece.  

I also wanted to make my rustic mason jar centerpiece in the dining room a little more patriotic.  I used some stuff I found around the house to make some cute pinwheels.  Here's what you need to make your own:

-Scrapbook paper cut into 6 inch squares

-Straws

-Straight Pins

-Scissors

-Glue Stick

-Little tiny sticks (I'll explain.)

After you have your 6 inch squares, glue two pieces together so you have a two-sided square.  Then you will cut diagonally from each corner to the center of the square, but don't cut all the way.

Then you'll fold one corner of the resulting triangles to the center of the square, like so. 

Once you've got all four corners in the center, put a straight pin through the whole pinwheel.  Then put the straight pin through the straw.  Here's where the tiny sticks come in.  The straight pin needed something to keep it from sliding out of the straw.  I wandered around the house trying to think of something I could use.  I looked out the window and a tree branch started calling my name.  I broke off a little piece to put on the end of the straight pin to keep everything in place.  

I made 5 pinwheels, but it looked too busy once I put them in the mason jars.  So I took away two of them and kept three.  I put some pebbles in the bottom of the jar to keep the pinwheel standing up straight.  Here's the final result.  

And there's nothing more patriotic than an American flag.  

 
I'm ready for the 4th!