Feels Like a Lazy Summer Day

 Yes, it feels like a lazy summer day but I have to remind myself that it is still only May! It is so hot that I truly just had no motivation today to get out and do anything and so I hit my Pinterest pages to see if there were any craft ideas just jumping out at me...and, there really weren't but I did see a 4th of July hanger that I knew I had most of the supplies for so I decided to go ahead with it and use up some of the day.

I pulled the beginning of the supplies and printed an Uncle Sam puppet image that I thought was about like the inspiration.

I needed to distress the flag a bit so this time I just watered down some of my antique wax and gave it a good coat after taking it off of the stick it came on-which I saved because I'm sure I'll do something with it some day. Lol

While that was drying, I glued the image onto a piece of white foam core board and cut it out. I have learned that when I cut small things from foam core that aren't just straight sided, I don't even bother with a cutting mat because I actually just hold the board up, insert the blade and use a sawing motion. That always seems to work for me as long as I have a new or at least very sharp blade in and I use short motions.

 Once the pieces were cut, I colored the edges with either markers or paint. That probably wasn't necessary but I didn't like seeing the white sides.

Then the glue gun came out and I glued on Sam's arms and the edges of the flag to create a bag shape. After that I used small blue star shaped brads where a regular brad would have gone if I was making this guy into a moveable paper puppet.

Next came the rusty wire hanger and then I simply filled the bag with a bit of poly-fil before adding some greenery, pip berry branches and Uncle Sam. 

I am not done with this yet but if I have anything else that I would want to add, it is packed well away with all of the 4th stuff and I'm not quite ready to start pulling all of that stuff out just yet. I think I might have some blue pip berries and maybe some "sparkly" picks of some kind. If not, I will pick some up on my next HL trip now that 4th of July is finally 40% off in there.

Is this a favorite? Definitely not but I think I can zhuzh it up a bit and find a spot for it somewhere...and, it helped me while away much of a very unpleasant (temperature wise) day. So, do the means justify the end...or vice versa? LOL

Stay safe, stay cool and stay tuned.