Bloggeriest 4th of July Crafts

While we love DIY blogging dearly, as you know we are also quite aware of how ridiculous the blogosphere is. One of our favorite pastimes is not-so-gentle-mocking of this world we’re part of, including investing our precious and limited time in making satirical craft projects. Don’t say we’re not committed to this thing.

If you’ve missed these in the past, be sure to check out such classics as our magnificent cork chandelier, our raccoon trinket dish, our greenery-themed dinner party, and of course that time we put mid-century legs on a pumpkin.

We’ve been meaning to put together some Fourth of July crafts for awhile now, but frankly we’ve found it challenging. Our usual humor recipe is to use a concept that is overdone in the blogosphere and take it up a few levels of ridiculousness by adding even more blogger-y elements (hence adding mid-century legs and an anthropologie knob to a pumpkin…), but when we were looking at Fourth of July crafts to inspire us it honestly felt like all of them were already about as ridiculous as they could get. How could we possibly make them more bloggery? Maybe we just don’t get patriotic party decor?

So instead of our usual approach of coming up with a few different absurd projects, instead we decided to recreate a few popular ideas we saw online and then come up with just one of our own — and then ask you to guess which ones are real projects, and which one we came up with while trying to be as ridiculous as possible. Can you spot the plant among these actual Independence Day crafts?

1. Mason jars…need we say more?

Obviously no DIY party decor is complete without mason jars. For this project, we whipped up a variation on mason jar candles using some rice and food coloring.

Step 1: Grab a few jars from your mason jar stash. If you don’t have a mason jar stash, hang your head in shame, you are not a real blogger/DIYer.

Step 2: Pour rice in a ziploc bag.

Step 3: Put a few drops of food coloring into ziploc bag. You can use only colors you want, but for this project we obviously wanted to honor America.

Step 4: Shake ziploc bag.

Step 5: Pour layers of rice into your mason jars. Use a funnel if you don’t want patriotic rice spilling all over your counters.

Step 6: Add tea lights, also from your stash.

Step 7: Style with tiny American flags that are definitely a fire hazard. Bandana optional but highly recommended if you are a true patriot.

Step 8: Take close up shots that make it hard to actually see the finished product to prove that you are a real blogger.

2. Patriotic pineapples

If DIY blogland has a mascot, we’re pretty sure it would be the pineapple. Or maybe a fox carrying a pineapple-shaped purse in front of a pink house surrounded by palm trees. Unfortunately we couldn’t find a fox, pink house, or palm trees, but we sure found ourselves some pineapples.

You’ll also need a few cans of spray paint. We used “Banner Red” and “True Blue” — how much more patriotic does it get? Unfortunately they didn’t have “Freedom White”….

You might think that spray painting a pineapple is hard, but it turns out that it is incredibly easy and satisfying. Watch all that fruity goodness disappear under a few layers of toxic paint!

Once they’ve dried enough to not give off enough fumes to kill your family/pets/plants, bring them inside and style them as a beautiful centerpiece!

Or if you’re feeling really festive, you could even stick sparklers in them! (Or kebab sticks to simulate sparklers if those are illegal in your state….)

3. Fringed door mat

If you’re as patriotic as we are, you want something that screams “AMERICA” to greet your guests before they even walk through your front door. And there’s nothing more blogger than painting your own door mat! Supplies for this one are so easy: spray paint, frog tape (or if Scotch Blue wants to sponsor us we can photoshop them in instead), an inexpensive welcome mat, and bandanas.

First up, get started on spray painting the whole mat white. This will take a looooong time. If there are two of you, you can take turns.

We learned that if pineapples represent the easiest thing to spray paint, welcome mats represent the hardest. So in the future when gauging how easy/hard something is to paint, we will be using a scale of “pineapple to floor mat” to explain.

While it dries between coats, try to imagine what the neighbors are saying about you and your weird very American hobbies.

Once you have completed at least 75 thin and even coats of white spray paint, it’s time to tape off the corner to apply blue.

Next up, use your frog tape (or whoever you have chosen to partner with for this project) to make stripes. We weren’t content with plain old stripes, we’re true bloggers so we decided to add a fun twist: chevrons!

Once you’ve carefully applied the tape in a chevron pattern, be sure to cover the blue section you just painted. Otherwise you’ll end up with purple, and that just isn’t patriotic.

Next apply a few coats of red paint.

While that dries, it’s time to create the fringe. Simply cut/tear your bandanas into strips, and then once your mat has dried attach the strips to the bottom. We couldn’t be more pleased with the finished result:

4. Faux firecrackers

And lastly, we just had to try our hand at a faux firecracker project. This one was so easy and required just a few supplies.

Yes, those are pool noodles. Keep in mind that it’s obligatory to yell “pool noodle!” when you come across them in the store.

(This photo was a recreation of the moment of exciting discovery, because we wanted you all to be part of it.)

Start by sawing the pool noodles into thirds.

Next, bundle three together and wrap patriotic ribbon around them to secure them together. Lastly, cut strips of patriotic streamers and stick them into the holes in the top to mimic fireworks. Aren’t they charming?

Be sure to take lots of artsy shots.

So the million dollar question is: which of these genius projects did we come up with ourselves, and which did other pioneering bloggers think of first?  Which are actual 4th of of July crafts that we saw on Pinterest, and which is the plant?