Hip, Hip, Hooray for the Grand Old USA

Happy Birthday America! I hope everyone is enjoying the patriotic festivities with family , friends, and of course food(not to mention the fireworks). In honor of the great Red, White , & Blue birthday I am going to share the directions to make my version of primitive wood fire cracker ornies.

Materials needed are:

1. a 1 inch diameter wood dowel

2. red, white, and blue paint

3. silver cord or twine or sinew or candle wick (your choice, I used silver cord)

4. drill with small diameter bit or screw driver with small diameter screw

5. diluted walnut colored stain

6. coping saw

7. Tacky Glue

8. clean cloth

Directions:

1. Cut dowel into 4 inch pieces with the coping saw.

2. Drill a hole in the tops of each dowel piece about 1/8 to 1/4 inch deep, if you don’t have a drill use a screwdriver and small diameter screw to make the hole( just be sure to take the screw back out)

3. Paint the top with the hole blue and paint the blue down an inch from the top. Let dry.

4. Paint small white stars around the dried blue painted part of the dowel making sure the stars are spaced evenly. Let dry.

5. Paint the bottom 3 inches of the dowel white. Let dry.

6. Paint Red stripes down the white painted bottom part of the dowel. Making sure that the red stripe is evenly alternating with the white. Let dry.

7. Paint the whole painted dowel with the diluted walnut stain then quickly wipe off the stain with a clean cloth leaving the painted dowel looking “old and dirty”. Wipe as little or as much as you would like depending on the look you are wanting to achieve. Let dry completely.

8. Cut your cord, twine, sinew, or candle wick to your desired wick length, I cut mine around 3 1/2 inches. Then use your Tacky glue and put a dab of glue in the hole that you made in the top of the dowel and insert your wick material and let dry.

9. Decorate, decorate, decorate!

I hope everyone has a safe and sane 4th of July, enjoy and remember what this day is all about!