DIY 4th of July mantel

My absolute FAVORITE holiday is hands down the 4th of July!  You get freedom, family, good food and no money spent on gift giving.  Our grandpa is a vet and our uncle passed away fighting in Vietman, we grew up with a strong love of our country and are excited to celebrate it every year.  It’s fun to pull red white and blue together from found things around the house to make an easy patriotic mantel collection.  Loving this year’s DIY 4th of July mantel with our fun patriotic foam cones!

We were challenged to create SUMMER DECOR for this month’s Make it Fun challenge.  What’s more summer than the 4th of July! We used some cones and paint to make these easy patriotic trees and love how they turned out!

Supplies:

• FloraCraft® Make It: Fun® Foam Cones
• chalk paint (acrylic works too)
• chalk paint brush + foam brush
• star stickers (I cut mine on my vinyl cutter)
• patriotic ribbons
• dowels (I bought 3 flags for $1 at Dollar Tree and used the dowels the flags were on)

Directions:

• I started by painting 2 red stripes around the cones with my thicker chalk paint brush.  I cleaned up the lines when it was dry with a tiny paint brush.
• I then stuck a handful of 1″ star stickers on a 3rd cone and blotted on blue paint with a foam brush.  
• Peel stickers off when dry.
• Insert dowels leaving a 1/2″ gap at the top.
• Tie on coordinating ribbons to the top of the dowels.
• I staged mine with vintage mason jar lids for differing heights.

See how I made the GOD BLESS AMERICA sign here.

I collect the number 4 for the amount of little people I created in my home.  This vintage fellow is from thrifting at the most recent JITTM.

Love all of Natalie Creates’ colorful flags, great to stick in diy painted jars or upcycled jars.

Red star borrowed from my boys room.

Visit all of our foam ideas, lots of creative uses for the easy to work with material!  See more of our 4th of July ideas like our 10 free patriotic fonts, our adorable Stars and Stripes bunting,

plus our Patriotic Flower Pot!

And if DIY’ing isn’t your thing…pop our free Patriotic Mason Jar printable into a frame (;