This Year's Red, White and Blue!

Let's dive into what made the great outdoors at least a little festive and pretty these past few days, shall we?! I'll start with the obvious red, white and blue decor!

Please ignore the Christmas Tree lingering back there. Or,
don't because it's cute!

I had a vision of what I wanted for the posts in terms of  the post decorations, but what I wanted required wired ribbon. And, I didn't have that. And, I didn't want to buy that. So, I followed a tutorial to create the ribbon I actually wanted and manipulated it to make it work for what I had! I did not picture this kind of ribbon at all, but I love the way it looks!

The first step was to simply stack a length of ribbon on top of itself back and forth accordion style:

I eyeball-measured the diameter I assumed I wanted. No measuring here.

From there, I took the really sharp, precision scissors and cut slits on each side of the middle:

Just up to the white on both sides did the trick. And, you can
see it's not perfect as the ribbon slides a little while cutting if
you pay as little attention to that as I did.

After that, I tied a piece of string as tight as I could around the middle. The string fit in the slits, and the knot was simply a little double knot.

I don't seem to have a picture of that. But, I
do have this picture of Lizzy making it really
difficult to pull the ribbon I need as she plays
with it.

When I pulled the string, it flared the loops out quite a bit to help create the circle formation. I twisted the loops back and forth at the point where the string holds them together to allow them to move as much as possible which helped create almost a complete circle. Where there were gaps between loops on the ends, I used a little hot glue to bring them together.

From there, I cut some velcro strips to use around the posts. The piece of velcro I had was quite wide, so I cut it in thirds lengthwise. Then, I stuck 'em on a piece of ribbon so they were "finished."

After cutting them apart and trimming up the ribbon, they got hot glued on to the back of the ribbon decoration:

I made four and figured that was good.

I could have made more, but you will not there is not yet grass on the plywood. So, I was kind of itching to get a lot of things done at one time! So, up they went!

Here's how the Velcro situation turned out from behind:

Cool, huh?

You can see I also sort-of-swagged some ribbon across the railings. My secret to success to slap that up fast and keep it up is the Elmer's putty stuff:

A little dab under the ribbon keeps it in
place and can be removed when it comes down!

And, in time-warp picture mode, I made just a few yard stakes with star buttons, toothpicks and Quick Grip glue:

I'm already anxious to make about a million more of these for next year!

Here are a few more views:

Ahh ... 

And I'm proud to be an American - Where at least I know I'm free - And I won't forget the men who died - Who gave that right to me - And I'd gladly stand up next to you - And defend Her still today - 'Cause there ain't no doubt - I love this land - God Bless the U.S.A.  -- Lee Greenwood. Gets me every, single time.