The Fourth of July typically is the first national holiday during kids’ summer vacation. Here are three simple projects from two craft mavens that can involve your kids in preparations for the holiday’s fireworks and picnics. Not only do you keep them busy, but you get decorations to reuse year after year.
“There’s so much enthusiasm around this holiday,” says Amanda Kingloff of New York, author of “Project Kid: 100 Ingenious Crafts for Family Fun” (Artisan, 2014), who appreciates the inflexible color palette: It’s red, white and blue — or nothing.
“Christmas has morphed into any color combination. What’s trending in Christmas this year? It might be silver and gold,” says Kingloff. “With July Fourth, you do not leave the path of red, white and blue.”
For Independence Day, she recommends two simple crafts: firework flowers and stars and stripes bunting.
Directions for the flowers — made from just cupcake liners and straws — are below.
The bunting is even easier.
It requires no measuring: Cut out triangles from paper or fabric (Kingloff cuts 5-by-6-inch triangles from canvas drop cloth). With a craft knife, cut large or small stars out of thick, plastic-coated freezer paper and either iron them, or the freezer paper the star was cut from, to the fabric. Then paint it. You can also use painter’s tape to mark and paint thick or thin stripes.
After the paint has dried, glue a string or cord to the top back edge of each triangle, leaving at least 2 empty inches of string on either end so that you can hang your bunting.
The freezer paper provides crisper lines than a store-bought stencil, Kingloff says.
Cristin Drewes of Provo, Utah, recommends a flag craft that she’s done with all six of her children. It’s simple enough: Use little kids’ hands to paint blue “stars” and their feet to paint red “stripes,” using acrylic paint and white craft paper, cut into a flag’s typical dimensions. You can find both items at teacher-supply and craft stores and websites.
Drewes recalls making her first flag with friends in the early 1990s. She wanted to make a memorable gift for her parents; the framed painting still hangs in their home. She also has her own flag, which she hangs over her fireplace during holidays, such as Memorial Day.
Her project is featured on Pinterest, the online site ParentMap and her own blog, Serendipity.
“It was really just a matter of holding the little foot out and stepping it down,” Drewes says. “I’ve cherished these a long time.”
Firework Flowers
Adapted from “Project Kid” by Amanda Kingloff
Supplies
2 cupcake liners
Scissors
1 drinking straw
Colored craft tape, such as washi
Glue (optional)
Directions
Place the flattened cupcake liners face to face, with the color or pattern on the outside. Fringe only the ruffled part of the liners about every ⅛ inch to ¼ inch, stopping when you reach the center flat circle.
Fold the liners in half, then in half again. Roll this “quarter circle” from the bottom and push the point you’ve created snugly into the straw. (If the flower tends to pop out of the straw, squeeze a dab of glue into the straw.)
Tear off a 2-inch piece of tape and center it on the shaft of the straw, folding it back across the straw and itself. (This is the leaf.)
Bend the neck of the straw to angle your flowers slightly outward.
