For the first time in many years, I won’t be spending the Fourth of July on Lake Erie. In my lifetime, I have only not been there for Independence Day less than a handful of times. We are hoping to spend a week in August there, but Covid-19 safety is something we are taking seriously. So, since we will be home, I am hoping to have just a few friends over for a very small backyard party. In hopes of that, I made a cute sign to decorate the beverage area… Red, Wine & Blue!
Inspiration
I’m using my blog challenges to get back into a regular blogging schedule. It’s been hard with everyone home and so many things needing to change.
The Pinterest Challenge is one of my favorites. The challenge is to motivate us to not just pin, but to make it happen! This month’s challenge is all about summer or July 4th projects. My inspiration came from this cute t-shirt idea I pinned:
I’ve been having fun experimenting with making t-shirts with my Cricut.
The phrase is cute and it gave me the idea to put it on a wooden plaque to use as a decoration.
Red, Wine & Blue
I started by going into the Cricut design studio and laying out my vision.
I almost always start with a shape the size of my finished product. Seeing the scale and not having to resize later is visually helpful to me.
Instead of transfer paper, I stock up on Dollar Tree’s book cover contact paper. Not only is it cheap, but I can use it multiple times. That’s why you see two pieces used above, I grabbed the closest scraps from my last project!
I could have used vinyl for this project. But I like making stencils and painting. Painting is therapeutic to me.
Don’t mind the shadows and poor light, I was crafting while on zoom with friends!
Before I started, I knew I would use some glitter paint. But my first coat was a solid color. I find the finished effect to be bolder with a solid color paint first.
Two coats of glitter paint. The white is actually hologram paint! Since I was lazy and didn’t completely wash all of the red, blue and silver paint off my brush, the white areas have specks of the other glitter.
The specks (very hard to see in the picture) worked out as a perfect compliment to the hologram paint.
Fourth of July Party
I don’t know for sure if we will have an actual Fourth of July party. But I would much rather keep some physical distance from friends and hang out in real life than virtually.
Since life is still so virtual right now, I had fun virtually creating my anticipated party.
Nope, that’s in doors… danger danger! Lol
Outdoors, much safer… still probably a little too physically close… but, in virtual Covid world, I get to be younger and skinnier!
June Pinterest Challenge
My Pinterventures • Across the Boulevard Cookies Coffee and Crafts • Farm Girl Reformed • Slices of Life Decorate and More with Tip • Purple Hues and Me Life Beyond Kitchen • Created Homemade • Domestic Deadline Mom Home Guide • Sum of their Stories • Teadoddles Create with Cynthia
For more Pinterest inspired projects from this month’s Pinterest Challenge hosts, check out the links below.