Sunday, July 10, 2011

Fourth of July Firsts

Yes, the holiday is past, but I wanted to share some fun things I tried this year. I’ll start with a top personal accomplishment, a paper wreath for my front door!

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I was inspired by Corner House’s awesome paper wreath. It is beautiful—you have to go see it! She has great instructions too.

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Anyway, I had a small wreath to spare that I thought would not take too many scalloped circle cones. Ha! This was a labor of love OR more like an opportunity to persevere! Don’t let me scare you on this—I think it is the perfect project to work on as you’re talking on the phone or watching a show. Just know it may not get done overnight! Having a large scalloped paper puncher is a huge help.

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A quirky thing about this 4th of July wreath is that the book pages are from a vintage Portuguese book! You could say that’s not OK on a piece of Americana, but we’ll just settle that we are blending cultures here! {or using what I can get my hands on!}

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Speaking of blending cultures, I decided to go a little more low-key on 4th décor this year since we were having Portuguese and British guests {ie: the other side of the placemats made by my mother-in-law are covered in US flags}. Of course we had a few laughs about how we’d been freed from them! But they were great sports, even wearing red, white and blue!

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We are only able to get our hands on sparklers in Portugal, so pretty-ing them up made it feel a bit more special. The free printables are from Thig and Twistle.

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My other big attempt for this holiday was homemade hamburger buns. Not to complain, but the options for good hamburger buns here are very slim, so much that I’d gotten to where I really didn’t want to make hamburgers! This was a last attempt to keep one of my husband’s favorite foods in our normal repertoire. I think they turned out well—a recipe request from a guest makes you think others like them too! Oh how necessity{?} breeds resourcefulness!

Sharing this at Turning the Table Thursday and

4 comments:

  1. GREAT job, Jenni! Those hamburger buns look so good! I bet they where tasty! And what a cute idea for sparklers! The paper wreath is adorable, too! Sounds like you guys had a great time! Our Fourth was extremely low key--I think the most Fourth of Julyish thing we did was watch the Macy's Fourth of July fireworks show on TV! We normally watch our own with Luke's parents but their show was canceled due to the drought going on right now. :(

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  2. gorgeous fourth! i love your blog. thanks for visiting mine. i edited my recipe to let you know you can use a teaspoon of Pure Vanilla Extract instead of Starbucks Syrup. i wish i could mail you Starbucks Syrup though, it's so delicious! :)

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  3. that is beautiful! Found you from the Raising Homemakers linkup. Would love for you to link up to Turning the Table Thursday (starts tonight at 9pm PST). Stumbled your post as well...hope you get some extra traffic. ;-)

    Wendy
    Around My Family Table

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