And This Is Exactly Why I Make a Sample!

In trying to stay true to my word about not doing a lot outside today - and, knowing that my grand daughter was coming to spend some time with me tomorrow - I decided to give the 4th of July stars a try. Since I have worked with children for many, many years, I have learned that it is a MUST to try the craft first. That way, you can tweak it and work out any kinks. You also know everything you need to have on hand and anything you might to have to have prepped.

Boy am I glad I tried this star. It certainly looks easy enough. The painting was a no-brainer.

Then, when that dried I gave them all a light sanding to distress and just knock the color down a bit.

The next step would have been easy if I could have found the small star stamp that I think I have...but, I couldn't. I probably could have free handed the stars but I decided to try my stencil.

For me, placement is always an issue. I don't know why but trying to figure out the even placement of things always gets me confused. There's the center, the width of the stars, the distance between, the distance at the ends....in any case, I sure wish I had just had the stamp. And, let me say that if I do try this with any of the kids, I will NOT use the stencil. I had to do a lot of jerry rigging to get the stars to looks like stars instead of starfish or snowflakes!

And then there is the assembly. Luckily, I chose not to use hot glue. It would have been easier because of its instant grip but in this case, you don't really want instant grip. It was kind of tricky to figure out which stir stick went where because in this case, I wanted the blue stick to be on the top at both ends. It would probably have been better to make solid color stars but, I really didn't want 3 stars-red, white and blue. In any case, I used wood glue which will dry incredibly strong and let me have some wiggle time until I could get it to resemble a star!

I adapted this star from one similar on daily-hobby.com

My last step was to tie on some red and white butcher's twine.

I like it but I'm not sure where I will go from here. I'll have to see what the kids have to say. Stay tuned...and, I'm off to make potato salad, baked beans and a fresh blueberry cake for our impromptu Memorial Day party. I just found out grand daughter #3 will be joining us so I'm super excited!