Flag Door Hanger

I saw something like this online (probably Pinterest) and filed it away in the crafting part of my brain (which is about 95% of my brain haha) for a later date. Well, cleaning up my craft room I remembered I still have leftover material from my Patriotic Wreaths and this idea popped up in my mind. 

This came together so quickly - just cut 26" strips of red and white material and tie them to a hanger. Then cut 18" of blue material and tie in between the red and white strips on the left side.

I added some ribbon and pompom trim to finish it, but not sure it really needed it - you know me tho, never know when to quit haha! 

I hung it on the door going into the house from our garage where it'll be protected from the weather - hoping it doesn't fall off the hook...if it does I'll close up the hanging loop with pliers.

one year ago: painted mason jar with paper pinwheels
two years ago: healthy berry trifle

Painted Mason Jar with Paper Pinwheels

I have no luck painting on mason jars - remember the cool flag jars I made for my sis a couple years ago that were such a nightmare for me to paint? Click here to revisit that post - they are really cute and she displays them all the time so that's nice, at least my suffering wasn't for nothin' hahaha! Anyway...I saw on Pinterest someone painted a jar with chalk white paint and I thought I'd give it another try - bought chalk paint that specifically says for painting on glass, I thought maybe the prob in the past was the craft paint I used - but nope, this was just as bad.

I painted one coat and let it thoroughly dry overnight, then when I added a second coat the base coat peeled off in spots. Ugh. I was going to skip this all together and not even show you, but hey, it's what I made so there it is - Pinterest fail. I am using it to display the paper pinwheels from yesterday's post, and with the addition of ribbon and tulle I'm hoping the bad paint job is disguised!

second coat

I even tried adding another coat - hard to see in this picture but it still peeled the under layers off!

One year ago: red, white, and blue berry trifle...SO good!

Paper Pinwheels

I made these simple pinwheels from cardstock and paper fasteners - the only other supplies you need are a ruler, scissors, hole punch, and a pencil. They don't take long at all to make, you still have time to make decorations for Independence Day decorating next week!

Start with a square of cardstock (or I think lighter weight paper would work good too), any size as long as it's square. I made 3 different sizes - 3" square, 4.5" square, 5.5" square. Draw a faint pencil line from corner to corner (making an "x") and cut up each line stopping maybe 1/2 inch or so from the center. The paper is now cut in 4 triangles (still connected in the center), hole punch one side of each triangle and in the center. Your paper should now look like this:

my red pinwheel has one corner of each triangle rounded off, I drew it out on this sample to show you. If you like how that looks make sure to just round off one corner and the opposite corner gets hole punched for the fastener to go thru.  

After you hole punch the 4 corners and the center you can form the pinwheel two ways:
(1) gently fold each hole punched corner to the center hole and then push a paper fastener thru all at once, or (2) hold the paper fastener and feed each hole punched corner onto the fastener and then push the fastener thru the center hole - whatever's easier for you. Then spread the 2 sides of the fastener apart to hold the pinwheel in place.

Above is the front and back of the 5.5" red pinwheels, the back of the pinwheel is before the fastener is spread open to hold it - see the next photo for what it looks like when the fastener is correctly in place:

To make the double pinwheel like the red one above and small 3" white one below,  I just fed two single pinwheels onto one fastener.

5.5" red double pinwheel, 4.5" single blue pinwheels, 3" double white pinwheel

I can think of many uses for these pinwheels - hook them to paper straws or bamboo sticks and put them in a vase, hang them on ribbon or twine for garland, attach streamers and make parade wands, use in place of bows on presents...look how pretty they look combined with the paper fireworks from last July (click here for that post):

What a pretty bouquet - I'm off to make a vase to put them in!

one year ago: pompom earrings! you know you want them...;)

Red, White, and Blue Windsock

Browsing the internet (aka: wasting time instead of doing something productive) and saw this idea for an easy quick craft - since I have the supplies on hand I just now went and made one (aka: got off my behind and did something)...took me maybe 15 minutes tops and it's really cute. Great kid craft!

Cut 1" strips of plastic tablecloths - I cut 10 each of red, white, and blue ones that I had on hand (from the dollar store that are 54x108") for a total of 30 strips. Make a wire ring using whatever wire you have on hand that you can bend into a circle, twisting it closed with some pliers (turn the ends under so they aren't sticking out and sharp). I have 16 gauge wire which is pretty heavy but still easily bend and shapeable.

For each strip: fold in half, put the center loop under the ring, bring the ends up over the ring and thru the loop, pull tight. Repeat until the ring is as full as you want it. Tie on some fishing line (or thread, or light wire...) to hang.

this is all you need (or use scissors to cut the strips), plus pliers to bend the wire.

29 strips to go...

tie on something to hang it - I used fishing line.

Found the idea here.

Red, White and Blue Headband

I had the idea to make myself flag bows, glue them on a barrette back, and clip them to my flip flops for the Fourth of July. So I went to the craft store and got all the supplies - along with bunches of other things cuz there's no way I can go to the craft store and only get what's on my list! - and set about making them.

Sounded easy enough...but...all went ok until I tried to actually clip them on my shoe - the metal part was against my foot and it hurt! The solution would have been to just hot glue them to my $3 Old Navy flip flops but I don't like that much commitment and want to wear them without the flag bows the rest of the time. I also tried to attach them to a pin back but that hurt even worse digging into the top of my foot. I sat there trying to figure out a way to attach them that wasn't painful and that led to my thinking I should just wear them as a barrette, and that led to the idea of gluing bows to a white plastic headband that I bought today (3/$1 - I didn't have a plan for them in mind, just bought them to have them for the future) instead and scraping the whole idea of putting them on my shoes!

Now that I've spent an hour on a 5 minute craft I'll share a very simple fun patriotic headband idea with you :). I've saved you all that time!

25" red and white striped ribbon
9"  blue ribbon, cut the ends on a diagonal
6" thin wire
1 white plastic headband
hot glue


Starting with the red and white ribbon I made a bow by folding under 3" then making loops back and forth that are 4" total across. I hot glued the ends down so they wouldn't slip out of the bow. Twist the wire around the middle (so there are 2" of bow on either side) to hold the bow in place, then tie the blue ribbon around the wire - I put the blue knot on the top of the bow, so the underside of the bow is flatter for glueing it down. I made three bows total and hot glued them to the headband.

You can turn these bows into barrettes or pins if you prefer - I just recommend not putting attaching them to your flip flop unless you can figure a way that isn't painful!

Oh, and yes I like quirky cutesy stuff - if this headband isn't your speed then you could either make it for a little girl you know or tailor this for yourself toning it down a bit so it's not quite so silly!

loop the ribbon back and forth totaling 4" across

glue the ends down to hold in place

twist a short piece of wire around the middle to form the bow

my first idea was to attach it to a barrette back

then my idea changed into a headband

first I put it on my model but she's just kinda creepy so then I selfie'd it on me...;)

Painted Flag Mason Jars

Ever have a crafting day where nothing goes right? Well I certainly do and this project falls under that category... good grief I struggled! I'd seen this mason jar project numerous places and thought it was cute - and then my sister mentioned she saw it and was hoping I would make them for her. Sure thing sissy, I'm always happy to have a purpose for crafting haha.

It started out fine, if you count going down to the basement to get 3 pint jars from storage and knocking over an entire shelf of plastic containers fine. And that was just the beginning. I couldn't find navy paint at 2 different craft stores so figured I'd just make my own by adding black to some brighter blue. That actually worked, but still - why can't I just buy navy paint? So 2 jars get painted white and one navy; there was something wrong with my white craft paint and it ended up going on uneven and gooey. I tried to speed up the drying process by hitting it with the hair dryer but it just looked bad - fortunately I used regular old acrylic craft paint so it was easy to wash off the jars and start again with fresh white paint and the second time I painted them went better. I ended up painting all 3 jars with a second coat. After thoroughly dry I taped off the areas where I wanted to paint the red stripes using washi tape as recommended - I read that blue painters tape would pull the paint off the jar. Guess what, washi tape pulls the paint off too...ugh. 

I couldn't get the tape to stick tightly around the curved edge of the
top of ball jar, so I used a fat rubber band as a guide

this is what the jar looked like after removing the washi tape...a little messy!
I touched up the area where the red went into the white and where it peeled
the paint off with a small brush.

I used a tip I saw online to make the star stamp and hot glued a couple foam stars to the end of a wine cork, yes - that worked! Great idea I will def use again. Then dip the stamp in white paint and stamp over the navy, except the jar is round so I had to press the edges of the star onto the jar - you won't get nice crisp star edges doing that but I decided the rustic handmade look is what I was going for and not try to make them so perfect. 

glue foam stars to a wine cork to
make the stamp

One site I found with directions said when they were completely decorated and dry she lightly sanded them in places to make them look distressed, I know why she did that - cuz they don't look so good and you want to rough them up a bit to help with the illusion that you meant for them to look beat up!

after I lightly sanded them to give them a "distressed" look.
Actually I was distressed more than the jars!! 

After sanding I sprayed them with clear shiny sealer so they will hopefully last forever and I don't have to remake them for her! I'm not saying this isn't a cute or worthwhile project - once completed I actually really like them, but let's just say that after having everything go wrong I'm not going to be making another set!

once dry, I took them outside and sprayed with a clear sealer

2021 update: my sis still brings this out every year, she put silverware in them a couple weeks ago for Memorial day and they still look great. It's making me rethink making another set - enough time has gone by that I'm willing to try again LOL!!