~Elmer Davis
Normally, I never do two postings in one day, but I wanted to get this out to everyone before the 4th of July. There's still time to make this for your celebrations; and if not for this year, then make it for next year.
I have to confess that I'm not a person who decorates for every holiday. I usually do a spring/summer combo, a fall/harvest combo and Christmas. A number of years ago, we purchased a red, white and blue twirl thingy, to hang on our trailer while we were camping for the 4th of July. Other than that, we only hung an American Flag at our house, on our sailboat or at our cottage. A few years ago, we stuck a few flags into our flower pots at the cottage and called it good...
I saw some cute banners for the holiday and decided to try my hand at making one to hang in front of the cottage windows. I already had plenty of burlap and jute twine. I bought three packages of 4x6 inch flags and removed them from the plastic sticks...
I decided to try tea dyeing them to have them blend in more with the burlap. They said Made In America, but they didn't feel like they were cotton, so I knew they wouldn't absorb lots of the tea dye...
After dyeing the flags and letting them dry, I cut the ends off that were slipped onto the plastic sticks. I also cut my burlap a bit wider and longer than the flags, with enough to fold the top over to hold the twine for hanging. Then I ironed everything, including the 1 inch under at the top. I had read somewhere about spraying starch on the burlap to prevent it from unraveling, and for only $1.77 at Target, I thought it wouldn't hurt to try this.
Normally I would have sewn the flags to the burlap, but my tables at home are full of old photos and frames (for another project I'm working on) and I didn't want to haul my sewing machine to the cottage. So I used Tacky Glue instead. I applied the glue to the back of each flag and using paper towels, I patted them to the burlap. I had an old plastic tablecloth underneath them for glue that was sure to seep through...
I know this photo looks more red and white, but I assure you there is a bit of an off white look to them. After the flags were dried, I took my twine and glue it inside of my fold and put extra on the fold to hold everything down...
I did a bit of math before cutting my twine so I knew how long it had to be. When everything was dried, Mr. Cottage and I sent out to decide on where to hang it. Then he put in hooks and voila...
He noticed I only had 11 (I wanted an uneven number). He asked if I had two more for 13, as in the 13 original colonies. I
hadn't even thought about that. So Monday, on my way home, I'm going to stop and see if I can get another package of the same flags and add two more for next year...
I think our little Red Painted Cottage is looking pretty spectacular for the July 4th celebrations...
Have a happy and safe July 4th!
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