Patriotic Pallete

This week's #diy tutorial is a throwback to a couple of years ago, and I thought it would be perfect because, well... AMERICA'S BIRTHDAY! I absolutely LOVE the 4th of July. We are usually celebrating with family, and often up at the lake, filling our faces with tasty beverages, flag inspired apps, and all the mayonnaise heavy dishes we can make. And this time of the summer wouldn't be complete without a few patriotic decorations, because who doesn't love to decorate for a birthday?

If you are looking for a super easy way to decorate for any occasion, palettes are it. There are endless opportunities for these shabby (and might I say chic) wood fixtures. You can hang blankets on them, make them into a table, or even just lean them against a wall for a little texture in your decor. In this case, I actually had an old pier section, which is basically the same thing as a palette. I opted to paint ours, and turned it into a flag for my in-law's cabin. It was a super fun craft to do with a couple of my nephews, and we finished it in an hour or so.

How cute are my nephews?

Supplies

Palette/old pier section (tomato/tomahto, am I right)

Acrylic Paint (or outdoor paint if that applies to you)

Rubber star stamp

This one is pretty self explanatory, but I've got a couple of tips and tricks for you if you decide you want to tackle it. You can make this as involved as you wish. I personally chose to go the easy route and paint each row of the palette a different color, despite the fact that an actual American flag has more stripes. We painted the red and blue parts first, and the white last. That way, we didn't have to worry about making a mess of red and blue paint on the white parts.

As for paint choice, choose wisely. You might want to keep in mind where your palette is going to live, and whether it will be outside or not. For our purposes, we knew that this guy would be living on the indoors, so good old acrylic paint was the best choice. Durable and thick, and just what we wanted.

After the stripes were slapped, er... I mean, painted on ever so carefully, we also had to decide what we wanted to do with the stars, and we were left with a couple of choices. Free hand stars were an option, but to be honest, not a great one for this girl. That pretty much left me with stencils or stamps, and I chose the latter. I liked this option because if there's one thing about me, it's that I don't always need to have my projects be perfect. Since the palette itself was a bit rustic, I wanted to roll with it, and keep the project rustic as well. Ok fine. "Rustic" is my code word for "it's not perfect but I kind of like it that way." Hey, at least I have a realistic idea of my abilities, right? So anyways, back to those stars. A little dip in the paint, some dab-dab-dab on a paper plate or paper towel, and then stamp away. Have fun with it! Doesn't have to be symmetrical if you don't want. Becuase, YOLO.

And that, my patriotic people, is kind of all she wrote. It's that easy. Ample dry time and some muscle to put it up on the mantle, and voila! A close-to-free 4th of July decoration that makes a huge statement. Happy freaking birthday, America.