Stars and Stripes... er Polka Dots?!

It's been awhile since I checked out a blog hop and I already found some great projects that were made this week! I linked up my Pledge of Allegiance sign but I wanted to show you something else I made this week.

As soon as I saw this star block tutorial over at Cluck Cluck Sew I had to try it right away... then I had to make 3 more! 4 of the blocks is the perfect size for a 20x20 pillow for that I happened to have sitting around here! Even though I didn't get the pillow finished up for the 4th, I'll still get it finished up this week. I'm making it as a sham cover so I can make other covers and change them out.

One Nation Under God

I've been thinking about making a sign or something with the pledge of allegiance for a month or so but I was finally able to finish it yesterday. It's not exactly the idea that was originally in my head but I do love the end result. It started out as a scrap of 1x12 from a bench that is a work in progress. I painted it with some cream acrylic paint and some antiquing medium that I haven't quite figured out yet. I haven't had luck with the brushing on and wiping off immediately like the instructions say so I end up mixing a little of it with the base paint and blending it from there. The words were all designed in Photoshop and cut from vinyl.

Twirlin' in the Wind!

I read so many different tutorials for making pinwheels so I don't have just one source to credit. I did a combination of a several using 4" squares of scrapbook paper with a straight pin attaching it to a dowel. The trick to helping the pinwheel work seemed to be putting a bead on the straight pin before I put it through the paper and another bead between the paper and the dowel. One more thing I played with was making sure the pin was at a 90 degree angle to the dowel. I've had the acrylic box forever and a day and it was perfect to fill with sand and put the pinwheels in.

Red, White and Blue

I am ashamed to admit that our Easter decorations, even as few of them as there were, stayed up way too long after Easter. Then we had so many events and busy weekends in a row that I never got a chance to redo my shelving. So even though it's less than a week before the 4th of July, I am still going to decorate and do something crafty!!

Yesterday, with my daughter's help, I sewed up a felt circle garland. Cutting the circles out took longer than the actual sewing! A couple years ago when I painted the living room, we took down the horrible clanky vertical blinds, and put up these temporary cheap mini-blinds. I had planned for curtains, some nicer blinds, something! Nope, the cheap white mini blinds are still there.
This morning we took the entire family to the beach. There are two beaches nearby where dogs are allowed, so we picked the one that requires less hiking to the beach and it was PERFECT! We had the beach almost entirely to ourselves. People just started to come out when we were getting ready to leave. The thing I can't get over still after 7 years of living here is the temperature drop when you get to the lake and the water felt sooooo cold today! On a 90 degree day it feels great to cool off in the cold water, not so much today when it was in the upper 70s! But we still had a great time. It was our greyhound's first time at the beach. She didn't care much for the crashing waves but she did get her feet wet. Crystal, our beagle mutt, was soooo excited! She loves to swim, but wasn't sure of the bigger waves today. When she'd get to the shore, she would whine and bite at the waves coming in! We've had her out there to swim many times but this was probably the biggest waves she'd seen.