4th of July Projects for the Whole Family!

Creating 4th of July decorations with your children is a great way to celebrate the holiday and spend quality time together.

One project that kids and adults will enjoy working on is a 4th of July Flag fan decoration. You will need a piece of 17 by 5 1/2 inch piece of white paper, a ruler, pencil, blue and red markers, a pushpin and a plastic drinking straw. You will also need a paper fastener and tape. This project takes less than one hour to complete.

By the upper left-hand corner of the paper, measure and mark a rectangle that is about 8 and 1/2 inches wide and 3 inches high. Next, draw rows of stars within the rectangle and color around the stars with a blue marker. Divide the reset of the paper into stripes and color every other one red. It is up to you how many stripes to use, the U.S. flag has 13 with 7 red and 6 white. You will want to be sure to use a ruler for this part of the project.

Next, fold the paper accordion style and create a frame for the fan. Use a pushpin to poke a hole through each straw, one inch from the bottom. Join three straws with the paper fastener.

Next, spread apart the top of the straw frame, fit the flag onto the frame, and tape it in place so that each end of the flag is securely attached to each outside straw. You may also want to tape a middle fold to the middle straw for extra security. The fan will be able to fold up neatly using the pushpin straw frame. Children may also delicately tie the fan with white, red or blue ribbon.

The flag fans come in handy for those hot 4th of July parades and picnics!

Another great 4th of July family project is to make simple 4th of July chair covers. For this project you will need: felt, fabric glue or needle and thread, pins, repositionable glue and a few hours of free time.

To make the slipcover simply decide how far down the back of your chair you want the slipcover to hang. Simple slipcovers require chairs with no arms, so leave the plastic lawn chairs and go for the real dining room chairs for this project.

Measure from the back of the chair, from however far back you want the fabric to hang, all the way around to the front of the chair where the seat meets the frame. Next, you will need to measure the width of the chair. Be sure to add the thickness of the chair back and 1 inch for the seams.

The next step for your 4th of July chair slipcover is to cut a piece of white felt to fit your measurements. Fold the felt over the chair and pin the sides in place. Then you will remove the cover and either sew up the sides or glue them together with fabric glue. Then you will need to turn the cover inside out and decorate it with felt pieces that are 4th of July themed. You may either use red stripes and blue stars or add blue stripes and various stars.

Getting children involved in the decorating will also be fun for the whole family when it comes to gathering around the table.

This is also a great craft for other holidays and the felt pieces can be removed and rearranged. Other types of fabric may also be used, felt works well because it doesn't wrinkle. It is also typically inexpensive.

The chair covers can easily slip off and be stored year round. Extra felt may also be used to make banners or pillow covers of similar designs.

Each of these crafts will be a lot of fun for the family to make together. They also make great decorations for the neighborhood party!