Happy Fourth!

    I am excited to wish you a Happy Fourth of July and show you this patriotic wreath I made, not only for the Fourth, but to decorate our cabin when I go to Girl's Camp next week!  I talked about Girl's Camp in another post a couple of weeks ago.We have a BOOT CAMP theme, but I have also found out that the cabin I will be in is representing the Navy! I am so excited about that because so many symbols from the Navy lend themselves to spiritual thoughts (anchors, ships wheels, life preservers...) And also, the colors don't have to be camouflage, so red, white and blue will work great!  This little patriotic wreath will be a great addition to our nautical cabin decorations!  Here are the supplies you need:

1 package of coffee filters

food coloring

thin florist wire

a wire coat hanger, bent into a wreath shape.

     I had used the coffee filters for a craft project with my kids at school.  I had nearly a full package left and I used all of it for this project.  I used the food coloring mixed in water to dye the filters the color I wanted. Here is the process:

Squeeze quite a bit of food coloring into a bowl of water to make the color be as saturated as you would like it to be.

You don't have to dunk the filter thoroughly because they are so absorbent that the color will bleed through them quickly. I put the ends like this and then as I took them out I dipped one of the sides.

I placed them on a tray as I dipped them. You can see them beginning to soak up the color until all of the white disappeared.

        Because I live in Phoenix, AZ, just placed the entire tray of each color outside for about 1/2 an hour until they were pretty dry.  (Hint:  When the filters start blowing around the yard, you know that they are dry. Ha Ha)
         Next, using two filters together, You gather them up from the center into kind of a flower and start wiring them onto the hanger by wrapping:

This is the view from the back. You can see how I wrapped the wire around and around, adding filters as I went along.

When you get all of the way around, hang the wreath from a chair or something and check for bare spots that need filling in.

I wired on a few more filters to fill it out, and here is the end result!

       This is a simple, yet fun craft that can really be done in any color scheme.  I have seen some beautiful examples of this that have been tea dyed.  I am sure this patriotic wreath will add some pizzazz to our cabin at camp!
        Have a wonderful Fourth everyone.  Remember why we celebrate! Let Freedom Ring!  

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