Fourth of July centerpiece « The Hybrid Chick

Fourth of July centerpiece

By Jessica Pranaitis Friday July 2, 2010

As usual, I wasn’t exactly sure what I would end up needing to put this project together, so I just gathered up some basic supplies and set to work.

I did know that I wanted lots of fun patterned papers, so I chose to use the Happy Little Fourth Paper Pack by Quirky Twerp and Land of the Free mini kit by Sarah Jones Designs. I also knew I wanted to play with Kelleigh Ratzlaff’s Star Spangled Template Set. I opened up the template and clipped some of the papers to the shapes and printed them out.

I also printed long stripes of patterned paper, little star shapes and added the U, S, and A letters from Kelley Mickus’s Hello Sunshine alpha to make my fans and then printed.

These are the things I pulled together…

And my actual supply list:

digital kits and template from The Digichick
basic tools (craft knife, Cutterbees or other fine-tipped scissors, bone folder, 3 hole punch)
adhesives (paper glue, Mini Glue Dots, Mono Adhesive Permanent, scotch tape and foam tape)
straws
empty ribbon spools

I cut all my paper pieces out and then scored all the dotted lines from the star template. I was intending to use little wooden dowels to attach my stars and fans to, but then I remembered that I had plastic straws in my cupboard already and decided to use those instead. Before assembling the two halves of the star, I used a three hole punch to put a hole through the back piece and slid the straw in.

At first I tried to use regular white glue to attach the straw, but it was too wet and I was way too impatient to wait for it to dry, so I switched to a piece of scotch tape and that worked perfectly. I did discover that it’s easier to add the adhesive to the flaps using the tape runner before you tape the straw in though, so that’s how I did the other ones. Then I assembled the stars, starting on one of the points by the straw and working my way around the other points.

I used my craft knife to carefully take the cardboard circles off the empty ribbon spools and covered them in some of the patterned paper using craft glue, which is thickier and not as wet as regular white glue. I didn’t think of it this time, but next time I would paint the opposite side with white or other coordinating color acrylic paint.

While they were drying, I used my ruler and bone folder to score the long strips of patterned paper at equal intervals along the length. Next time I would score all of them at the same time before cutting them apart. I folded on the creases, alternating directions each time. Then I used the tape runner to attach the ends together, forming a circle which I gently flattened into the fan shape by pressing on the middle. I have a little cork board that I use for quilling, so I pulled that out and pinned the fan into the correct shape, putting a generous amount of craft glue down into the middle hole. If you don’t have a cork board, you could still add the glue and then sandwich your shape between two layers of wax paper and set something heavy on top to hold it in shape until it dries.

I repeated the process for the other three fans, and then set the board aside to let them dry. While they were drying, I assembled the little letter toppers for them. I find that putting a new blade on my craft knife before cutting out the little parts of the letters or other intricate work makes it go much faster and the cuts look cleaner. I used foam layering tape to add dimension between the parts. Here are the finished pieces of the fans before assembly.

To put it all together, I flipped the fan over and put plenty of craft glue into one of the folds and then added a little more glue to the center ribs.

Then I put the straw in the part with all the glue, rolled it around to get it covered and added the back to create a little sandwich. I set something heavy on top of it and left it to dry.

Then I flipped it back over and added more craft glue to the center of the front and put the layered letters on. Again, let it dry but make sure it’s lying flat somewhere because the letters have the tendency to shift out of place if it isn’t. Don’t ask me how I know. After all the pieces are totally dry, you can stick them in your centerpiece and that’s where using the straws made it fun. Because they were the kind with the little bendy section, I was able to adjust their angle. I definitely want to try these again and make even more stars in different sizes and have them coming out at all different angles. I chose to stick mine in my basil plant, one of my favorite summer herbs, but you could stick yours into a pot filled with little rocks or marbles to decorate your table, or into a potted plant to take to someone’s house. Even switch up the papers and letters to spell out “happy birthday” or “get well” for a fun gift. Lots of possibilities! Happy crafting!