Lisa: Fourth of July Celebrations!

Hello all and welcome to a new week!!  We are working on all things having to do with The Fourth of July this week.  For our Fourth of July celebrations, we invite all my husband's family over for water fun, a BBQ and fireworks.  We have a very large grassy area that works for accommadating large number so it is perfect.  I have table decorations planned but I thought this year would be fun to spruce up our yard with decorations!  So for this week, I am doing star decorations for the flower beds. 

These are super easy and take a very short amount of time to make. 

Supplies:

Wooden stars

Patterned paper

Wooden dowels

Mod Podge

Sponge brush

Paint

Wood glue

Steps:

1) Lay out the stars and paint the desired color.  Let dry.

2) Trace star shape onto the back side of the paper.  Cut out.

3) Paint a layer of Mod Podge onto the dried, painted star.  Place the cutout star shape on the painted star and smooth out any wrinkles that appear.  Allow to dry.  Paint a top layer of Mod Podge onto the paper.  Let dry.
4) Drill hole into bottom of the star that is wide enough for the dowel to fit.  Cut dowel to desired length.  Place a small amount of wood glue into the drilled hole.  Insert dowel and allow to dry. (Or you can do what I did and skip this step altogether and just tape the dowels on!! I ran out of time!)

Done.  I think this will add a little fun to our outdoor party without me (I mean my husband) having to get up in the tree and string decorations.  Very nice!

Lisa

Allison: Patriotic Wreath Tutorial and Giveaway

  **Giveaway is now closed**
Wreath is available in our Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/fivecraftysisters

Hello, again!  I hope everyone had a relaxing Mother's Day!

I'm so excited for this week's theme!  I LOVE Memorial Day!  I consider myself a very patriotic person, and relish any opportunity to be reminded how blessed I am to live in this free country and to celebrate all those who protect/have protected that freedom.

For this week's post, I did some "research" on Pinterest and found this cute wreath made of tulle.  There was only one thing wrong with this wreath:  I am WAY too lazy to tie that much tulle!!  But it did remind me of a scrappy fabric wreath I attempted for Halloween last year.  I knew I had most of the fabric I would need, and knew where to get the rest of the supplies for CHEAP.  Here's what you need:

* I found this 9" wreath at the dollar store.  Perfect!  A little small, but that means less work.  :)

* Ribbon for hanging, if you choose (dollar store, again).  I have a wreath hook, so I didn't use mine.

* The stars I found at Joann's for $.29/each!  I only ended up using one.

* Fabric.  This is a great project to use your extra scraps of fabric.  I had all but the blue, which I found at Joann's in the Fat Quarters section.

This project is great, because there's no right or wrong way to do it.  I chose 3 different fabrics of each color.  I cut the pieces 1 1/4" wide and 9-10" long.  Some were thinner or shorter, depending on what scraps I had.  Anything shorter than 9" was a little harder to work with, but still doable.

Next, start tying!  I double tied one piece of each fabric, alternating between red and white.  If you look at the wreath as a clock, tie red and white from 12 o'clock to 9 o'clock (or 3/4 of the wreath).  Then tie your blue pieces the rest of the way.

You can nest the knots together if you don't want as much of the wreath showing through.  Or you can spray paint the wreath white before you start tying fabric.  (I did this with my Halloween wreath and it worked great!)

That decision might be the toughest part of this project.  :)  I liked it both ways, but decided to paint my little star and hot glue it on.  Multiple smaller stars could be cute too.

**THE GIVEAWAY**

Okay... now the fun part!  Leave a comment below answering one (or both) of the following questions:

* What do you like most about our blog?
* What would you like to see more of on our blog?

 If you aren't one of our Facebook friends, I'll also need your email address included in your comment (or you can email it to us at fivecraftysisters@gmail.com).  You have until Sunday night to enter.  Good luck, and Happy Memorial Day!!

Allison