Fourth of July

O! say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

- Francis Scott Key

We hope you all have a safe and wonderful holiday!

Independence Day on the Porch

I hope you all are having a wonderful Fourth of July weekend! We just wanted to pop in with some very simple yet festive touches we added to our porch. We found this pretty blue pitcher at HomeGoods so we decided to fill it with some hydrangeas from our yard and then added a few other blue and red touches like the table linens and the flag that we painted on some wood several years ago.

Source List:

So We Beat On... Great Gatsby Sign - Dear Lillie (now sold out)
Flag - I painted it 4 or 5 years ago (you can find a similar one here or here)
Table - I built it years ago (you can read more about it here)
Chairs - Arhaus - (similar ones can be found here)
End Chairs - TJ Maxx several years ago (similar ones can be found here)
Table Runner - HomeGoods
Round Placemats - HomeGoods (similar here)
Plates - Pottery Barn
Navy Pillows - HomeGoods
Navy Star Blanket - HomeGoods (similar here and here)
Blue Pitcher - HomeGoods
Bombshell Hydrangeas - picked from our yard

Hope you all have a wonderful rest of your holiday weekend!

*Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. At no additional cost to you, we may get a commission if you make a purchase through one of these links.  
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Burlap 1776 Pillows

Hello everyone! I hope you all have had a wonderful week. It's been pretty busy here - just six more days until there is a new owner to our home. Ahhh! And along with all the craziness that comes along with moving Lola's been sick and we had a pretty bad storm that knocked our power out for quite a while. I had to use my phone as a flashlight to UNPACK some of my boxes to find some candles and flashlights. Oh well - at least it was much better happening this week than it would have been next week! Anyway, I have a few posts ready for next week including a guest post from my mom and sister and a little peek into my plans for Lillie and Lola's new room (it's going to be much different than my usual taste!) and hopefully a tutorial on recovering a dining room chair (I took photos of it step-by-step, just not sure if I will have time to write it up or not) and a couple of other things if I can finish typing them up. 

Today I wanted to share with you this year's version of our 1776 pillow that is now available in our shop. We will not be having the colors that we had last year but are offering the design on this burlap. The print is very slightly weathered looking to look more natural on the burlap. Thank you Jamie for taking these pictures for us!

We also have the Star Spangled Banner download  and also prints available:

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

Star Spangled Banner and a Reader's Painting of Lillie

We have gotten a ton of packing done the last few days which is nice but that means our house is an absolute wreck so I didn't bother to do any fun Fourth of July styling for these photos. I just quickly took a few pictures so that we could get them listed in the shop. I started working on a God Bless America chalkboard too, but haven't finished it and am not sure I will. At the rate I'm going that may have to wait until next summer...

We have this chalkboard print available in the 8 by 10 size shown above, and the 11 by 14 size shown below:

And then we have the 24 by 36 download available as well:

Also I thought I would share with you an e-mail I got from one of our readers named Rachel. She told me she had used a photo of Lillie as inspiration for a painting she did and attached a photo of it. When I opened the attachment I saw this beautiful painting of one of my favorite photos (you can see the photo here). Isn't she talented?

Well, I'd better get back to packing. Just two and a half weeks to go!

A Few Fourth of July Touches

I have to say I don't think I have ever done any decorating for the Fourth of July. Partly, because I am a neutral girl so deep reds, and navy's just don't really get me excited, and partly because I don't think we've been home on the Fourth of July in quite a few years. I know the last three years we have been in New Hampshire and I can't really remember past that - haha! Seeing how we were going to be here this year, though, I thought it would be fun to just add a few temporary touches out on our porch. I knew it would probably drive me crazy in the house but out here I thought I could handle these deep colors at least temporarily.

The first project we did was go get a piece of wood at Lowe's that we had cut to be two feet tall and three feet wide. We painted it white and then taped off some stripes and painted them a deep red (I just mixed some black paint in with a generic red craft paint). Then I painted the blue square with a navy (which I again mixed some black in to darken a bright blue craft paint). The stars were a bit more interesting. I first just kind of guessed and freehanded them. Not a good idea! I didn't really think it through and although I got thirteen stars on in a circle, it wasn't a very good looking circle. It lasted about an hour and then drove me so crazy I painted over them so I could start fresh. The second time I made myself a little stencil, which worked MUCH better! Then once I was done I sanded everything down and then watered down some brown paint and washed it over the whole piece to age it a bit. It took a few hours but only cost about $10, which wasn't too bad.

Then I added our 1776 pillow covers (which are now HALF OFF) and used some cotton blue ticking stripe to make some new pillow covers.

I used the leftover ticking stripe fabric to make napkins and then printed out God Bless America and added that on top of each plate. (You can get our FREE download of this by clicking here).

Underneath the God Bless American printout you can see we added a silhouette of George Washington onto each plate. Although, all in all, I wasn't thrilled with the overall look, I did like how this turned out.

I also added a George Washington silhouette onto some navy pillows and placed them on the two side chairs. I was kind of annoyed that I wasted my time on them, though, because I wasn't that happy with how they turned out.

Then I added our navy 1776 pillow cover (which is also now HALF OFF) and a smaller ticking stripe pillow to Lillie and Lola's little bench.

Here's a little God Bless America on a chalkboard behind the little round table between the two chairs.

And another George Washington silhouette.

 

I also printed God Bless America (click here to download it for FREE) on a 8.5 by 11 piece of cardstock and added it to an easel on the little coffee table out there. 

All in all it was an inexpensive way to add festive touches (I just purchased the wood for the flag and one yard of ticking stripe, I had all the other supplies) but I have to say I will be happy to turn it back to what it looked like last week.

 I hope you have a fabulous Tuesday!

P.S. Along with our 1776 pillows covers being on sale, our 1776 wall art is HALF OFF too!