Quick and Easy Crafts: Patriotic Chalkboard Art

Red, white and blue: our country's patriotic colors. This patriotic chalkboard art is a great way to show off your love and loyalty for our country. This project has many steps, but is actually very simple to do. It requires very little painting and mainly gluing pre-painted items.

Patriotic Chalkboard Craft Supplies:

1 5x7 medium size chalkboard
Whicker white Fold Art paint
1 small sponge brush (a water cup and paper towels for cleaning it)
White glue
Hot glue
Red ribbon
Blue ribbon
1 Patriotic Necklace Kit by Crafty Kit ($1.00)
1 set of red, white and blue 3D glitter stars (made for Michaels Craft Stores)
5 blue star stickers
1 Uncle Sam 4^th of July decoration (small metal stick sign at Michaels for about $3.00)
Newspapers
Paper plate

Patriotic Chalkboard Craft Instructions:

After lying down your newspapers, to protect your work area, take your paper plate and put a small amount of white paint on it. You will be putting 2 coats of white paint on the outside part of the chalkboard. Be careful not to get any on the actual chalkboard and keep it on the wood only. Let dry.

While the paint dries, assemble your necklace. The flag goes in the middle and the bead colors should go blue, white, red, and then the star. Put aside.

Take the Uncle Sam stick sign and remove the metal stick. If you have a set of needle nose pliers in your art case, then they should be fine to cut the stick off. If not, then if you just wiggle it back and forth a few times, it should wiggle and bend and finally break off. The metal is soft, so it will bend very easily.

When the white paint is completely dry, take a good look and see if you will need a third coat. You want the white to not have any of the wood color showing through. If it is solid white, then proceed with the next step. If not, then apply another coat and let dry.

Take your hot glue gun and apply glue to the back of the Uncle Sam, right in the area where the stick was broken off. There will still be some of the stick welded to the sign, and that is where the hot glue will go. You will need to apply a good amount for it to coat the stick area and still have enough to adhere to the wood. You will also need to apply a small amount to the clip at the back of his head to adhere that to the wood frame as well. The Uncle Sam goes in the bottom left of the sign. Let dry. If it wiggles or is loose, then glue it again where needed.

The next step is to glue the necklace in place. (Take a look at the above picture for placement.) It should hang down just below the bottom of the frame. Secure the ends of the cord with hot glue on the back of the frame and trim off the extra cord.

Next, take the blue star stickers and apply 4 to the right side of the painted wood frame and one above Uncle Sam, evenly spaced.

After that, it is time to work with the 3D stars. These come as a 4 piece party decoration and need to be separated. If you are lucky, then you got one that has the bow already attached. If not, then you will need to make a bow in the next steps. Separate the stars and only use 3 of them. Mine came with an extra blue one. In order for these to stick to the chalkboard, you will need to perform two steps. The first step is to put a good size glob of hot glue on the back of each star, one at a time, and place them on the board. Wait for them to dry. When they dry, then will come off the smooth chalkboard, so gently pull them off. The glue should be completely dry and flat now. Put a bit of white glue on the flattened hot glue and place them back to the chalkboard. (Take a look at the picture again for the placement of the stars.)

Lastly, if your stars came with a red and blue ribbon, then it is time to place it. If not, then take the red and blue ribbon, cut at roughly 12", and make a nice bow. Once complete, it is time to glue it in place. Near the bottom center, where the white sticks of the stars meet, put a dab of hot glue and place your new ribbon on it. Trim the ribbon to your liking.

You are done! It seems like a lot of steps, but it only took me 45 minutes to complete. That includes the time for the paint to dry. This is a fun project for both kids and adults and is intended for indoor display only. There is no varnish to protect it from the elements and it is not a toy. The glued pieces will come off if played with. (The easy part is you will just have to re-glue them if they fall off.)

This is a great way to celebrate our country with fireworks in the night sky. I plan on having this on display in my house for Memorial Day, 4^th of July, Labor Day and Veteran's Day, too. If your craft store does not have the supplies I mentioned, then use your imagination and design one that fits you. Remember to have fun doing it. Enjoy!

For some great 4^th of July music ideas, try My Family's Top Ten Favorite 4th of July Songs

Need firework safety tips? Try Fireworks Safety for Kids or Fireworks Safety Tips

For another chalkboard art project, try Spring Chalkboard Art.

Sources:
Personal Experience and Ideas
Michael's Craft Store and Michaels.com
Joanne Fabric and Craft Store and Joann.com