Monogrammed Flag Tees

If you have been reading my blog for long, you already know that I have a love of homemade holiday shirts. Check out the evidence here, here, here, here, and here:) The 4th of July is actually one of my favorite holidays to make shirts for because after the 4th the shirts can still be worn without looking silly {like you would if you wore a Christmas shirt in the middle of March}! Last year my boys had cute {but sort of plain} gingham flag shirts, so this year I decided to make their shirts a little more interesting!

I started by using my Silhouette to cut out the first letter of each kiddos name in a wide letter as similar to the shape of the US flag as I could.

I picked up 1/4 yard of red striped fabric and 1/4 yard of solid blue fabric at the store {this was more than enough for me to make 3 kids' shirts}. I used the outline of the letter that I cut out with my Silhouette to help me line up the fabrics to look like a flag. The red and white striped should cover most of the letter and the solid blue should be in the top left corner of the letter.

You could simply cut out your letter by hand using the outline as a guide, but I decided to try out the fabric interfacing that I bought when I got my Silhouette. I ironed on the interfacing according to the directions, lined my material up on my cutting mat using my paper letter as a guide, and then I let my Silhouette do the work of cutting out the letter. Can I just say the fact that this machine can easily cut fabric makes it work it's weight in gold to me:)

Now that the hard part is over, the last step in making your monogrammed flag tees is to iron on your letter and then sew it in place. If you don't sew, you could easily buy the heavy duty iron on and skip the sewing step altogether.

Two of my models are going to VBS this week, so my littlest photography assistant helped me out with my photo shoot:)

Do you show your patriotism by wearing a red, white, and blue on the 4th of July?

Project Airstream

Last week I shared a little sneak peek of our newest project with you....and apparently it is hard to disguise a 29 foot travel trailer in photos because every single person knew what our new project was:) We did in fact get a new travel trailer, except the word new needs to be used very loosely here because our new travel trailer is actually older than both Jason and myself! We are now the proud owners of a Vintage Airstream {fyi did you know that vintage means that it is more than 25 years old}!

 After looking at a few other Airstreams and comparing prices, we decided to go on a little trip to see this beauty! When we got there, we were just a little bit excited about what we saw! Not only was this travel trailer the perfect set up for us, but it was also in REALLY great condition considering it was made in 1977! The guy we bought it from was a really cool guy who had intended to make a cabin in the woods out of this Airstream....but he just never got around to it. So our lovely travel trailer had been sitting on his property untouched for the last 5 years. The previous owners had obviously taken good care of it because when we started testing out all the systems everything seemed to work!

 The outside is in really good condition with only a few minor dents....though it is going to take quite a while to restore the shine to this beauty.

The inside is full on vintage 70's!

awesome sort of pink carpet

wood paneling everywhere

yellow and green flowery wallpaper

and some ugly curtains that seem to wrap around forever!

Luckily for us, most of the interior is easy to remedy with just a little bit of elbow grease. Actually Jason has already taken out the carpet and removed almost all of the curtains. After we finish demo-ing, we are planning on saying bye bye to all the dark wood by coating everything with a coat of light colored paint...plus a few dozen other upgrades that need to be made to make this travel trailer road worthy:

bunk beds will be built

new appliances will go in

laminate floors will recover the sub-floors

and fun new fabric will cover the fold out couch

Needless to say we are going to be busy with this project for quite a while! Our plan is to work on it for the next few months with the hopes of finishing up by next summer. Jason has always wanted to take the boys to the Grand Canyon, and camping with a bunch of boys seems almost perfect!

I will share more as we continue with this fun new project. We are complete newbies to the whole travel trailer and camping thing, so all advice and suggestions are welcomed:)

4th of July Tin Can Windsocks

A few weeks ago, I was browsing through an awesome post {at Under the Table and Dreaming} that included a ton of Flag Day/4th of July inspiration. The one project that really caught my eye was Stephanie Lynn's Tin Can Flag Windsock. It looked like such a fun project to try with the boys and I knew that I had almost everything I would need for the project already in my craft stash...lucky for me I've been hanging on to some old formula cans for more than a few years:) I headed to the store for some red and white ribbon and then gathered up all my other supplies {old formula cans, blue spray paint, some twine, and white contact paper stars cut out using my Silhouette} at home.

The first step for us was to take all the paper off the outside of the cans. I love letting the kiddos help along the way and pulling off the paper was fun for them and made them feel more involved.

Then we used some old rags and the water hose to clean out any of the old formula powder that was stuck to the inside of the can.

We gave each can a quick coat of blue spray paint and waited for them to dry.

After the paint was dry, we took our projects inside to add our stars and stripes. To keep the blue paint from getting on the table, I gave each kid a paper plate to place under their can. Then they got busy peeling the backs off their sticks and adding them to the cans however they wanted. I added my stars evenly around the can and Grant did a pretty good job of that too, but Eli's were kind of all on the same side and Henry made a three by three square of stars:)

While the boys were adding their stars, I cut the ribbon into strips about 15 inches long. I used a 30 foot roll of each color and that was just enough to cover our four cans.

Using my hot glue gun I added the strips of ribbon to the open end of the can alternating red and white. Unless you have a low temp glue gun or a kiddo who already knows how to use a glue gun, this should be a grown ups job:)

After all the ribbon was added, I used a screwdriver and a hammer to make two holes in the bottom of the can. Then I poked some twine through the holes and tied them on the inside. Stephanie used a different technique for her hanger so you might want to check out her way and decided which would work better for you.

After you  make sure you hanger is secure, they are ready to decorate your yard. This is what they look like hung on our front porch in celebration of the 4th of July....very patriotic I must say:)

Do you decorate your yard of the 4th of July?