DIY Fourth of July Crafts

Make red white and blue edible place settings with small plastic containers, painted white or blue or both. Single serving fruit cups are ideal. Paint or decorate only the outside of the containers. Make gelatin that is blue or use red if you must. Wash strawberries and other small red fruit bites, like cherries or cranberries, dried or fresh. When the gelatin has set in the small containers, spear the individual berries with colored toothpicks and arrange in the gelatin as snack or desert bites. Use one small decorative flag as a center post for the island of treats. The gelatin and the berries on the tooth picks are all edible. The entire treat is a colorful addition to your table, part craft and part food. Kids like the gelatin and nibbling on the fruit bites. If you must give in to the candy frame of mind, colorful gum or gel candies are ideal for this too.

Materials:

Empty and clean single serving fruit cups saved for reuse after lunches and snacks.
Individual washed berries like strawberries, cherries or cranberries or gum balls
Colorful toothpicks
One small flag on a toothpick size post for each container
Colorful marking pens or acrylic paints to decorate the clear fruit cups
One family size package of blue or red gelatin dessert.

Decorate your Table with a Home-made 4^th/Fourth of July Table Cloth.

Your easiest 4^th/Fourth of July craft is here! Attach a long sheet of white butcher paper to the table with tape. Place non-toxic colorful marking pens and crayons in red, white and blue containers along the center of the table. Seed the drawings with a few patriotic images pasted in along the center of the table.

Invite the children to decorate each place setting with 4^th /Fourth of July symbols like stars, flags, Liberty Bells, firecrackers, Uncle Sam cartoons. Twist and spread red and blue streamers diagonally across the table at strategic intervals and tape to the paper. These simulate the streams of color from fireworks in the night skies.

At a craft store you can find small packages of plastic confetti that look like stars and streamers, sprinkle these across the entire table as evenly as possible and allow the children to push them into patterns on the table to suit their designs. You will never know how much fun it can be until you do it.

Why decorate and celebrate for the Fourth of July?
Firecrackers on the 4^th /Fourth of July remind us of the battles fought to win Independence for Colonial America. The Liberty Bell rang so hard and so long it got the famous crack that symbolizes the ruptured relationship with the British. As a result, noise is part of every 4^th /Fourth of July celebration. One 4^th /Fourth of July craft silently illustrates making noise. That is the candy-filled "foney" firecrackers decorated by the children. Another will light your path after dark with luminaria you made as a quiet reminder of light of the "bombs bursting in air" and the "rockets bright glare".

Filled "Foney" Firecrackers are easy to make 4^th /Fourth of July crafts using small cardboard cylinders with lids, like from chips, or mailing tubes with lids. A few large ones may be made with round oatmeal containers. Decorate the containers with patriotic themes and colors using either paper or cut up old calendars or comics from the newspaper and glue them in place. Poke a hole in the lid before decorating it. Put a colorful straw in the hole in the lid to look like the fuse. Put individually wrapped candies inside the "foney" firecrackers and they quickly become favorites on the tables around the party.

Luminaria for your 4^th /Fourth of July Crafts are simple. I like to use small white sandwich paper bags with sand put in the bottom and a votive candle .You can use stencils or just draw freehand on the paper bags before putting about 1 inch of clean sandbox sand in the bottom of the bag. I like to cut out star shapes on two sides to let more of the light shine out.

You will need small paper bags, tiny votive candles, a bag of sandbox sand. Once filled, you can place them on walkways or table tops. Matches are essential to light the candles along the path, unless you go high tech and get one of those long handled fire starter devices. Older children or teens can help with the placement and lighting of the luminaria.

Guests may also enjoy writing famous quotes on the bags before they are lit. Things like the first line of the Declaration of Independence, "We the People.... " or the words to the Star-Spangled Banner one line at a time or quotes from some of the founders of our nation can help bring the meaning of the 4^th/Fourth of July home to the party.