Stars and Stripes Patriotic Banner- Easy Kid Craft

The Fourth of July is my favorite holiday. I love the food, the fireworks, the season and of course, America. This year especially I am loving the American flag motif and red, white, and blue. We don't however, have much in the way of patriotic decor so the kids and I put together this easy banner last week. It was a quick craft and we already had everything on hand. 

Supplies: paper grocery bags

                red and blue paint

                brass brads

                ribbon

                star stencil

To start I printed off a star stencil online. I had Easton cut it out for me.

Then I set my boys up with blue and red paint and a paper sack. I opened up the sack and cut them in half so that they could paint on the blank side. I gave one boy the red paint and the other the blue paint so that the project wouldn't end up a big purple mess. Then I told them to try and paint stripes and dots with their paint. It was a great way for them to practice painting shapes and lines. 

After the paint dried I traced the star stencil on the paper bags and then cut out our striped and dotted stars. (The kids ended up cutting up their bags into shreds while I had my back turned and before I could direct them differently. I had to whip up a few new painted bags in order to finish our project. Oops! Thus my stripes and dots are a little more perfect than they ought to be!)

Then I used brads to attach the stars to the ribbon spaced evenly apart. 

After the stars were all attached I put in an extra two brads between each star to add some gold to our banner. I love that extra detail! Then we strung it up across our chalkboard. It was fun, easy, and cheap- my kind of kid's craft!