4th of July Kids Crafts to Decorate Your Bikes! #gluenglitter

Remember when you were a kid and how we did simple things that were a lot of fun?  Lots of crafts and time outside?  Remember attaching playing cards to your bike to make it sound like an engine?  Remember decorating your bike for little mini parades?  Those were good times!

I try to keep my own children happy with simple things.  Too many kids are wrapped up in video games and texting.  There is no creativity flowing!  Check out these fun easy crafts and get your kids crafting and the creativity flowing!

Also, don’t forget to spread the festivity to your yard with your very own American and state flags! You’ll need flag poles to display them, so if you don’t already have one, be sure to grab one.

First of all, Elmer’s has some amazing products to help our kids get crafty!  A product that is new to me is called X-TREME.  Its the big daddy of all glue sticks and something that will definitely be kept in our crafting supplies from here on out!  This glue stick can glue wood, glue decorations to a bike and much much more!  It’s not your grandma’s glue stick…

The first thing we did was head to Walmart to pick up our supplies.  You can check out our shopping trip by visiting our intersect post.  There you will see all the products we picked out and some other crafty items that we will get another time.

How to Make Coffee Filter Carnations

Did you make these as a kid?  I did!  If not, here is a quick and easy refresher for you so that you can make them with your children.  We plan on making some other colors to decorate our house.  They really are pretty!

What you need:

• Coffee Filters
• Markers
• Water Colors
• Spray Bottle
• Fuzzy sticks, pipe cleaners or chenille sticks

First you want to color your coffee filters.  This doesn’t have to be perfect!  The littlest of the littles can do this!  The whole things does not need to be covered either!

After coloring your coffee filters you then need to mist it with a spray bottle.  You’ll start to see the colors bleed!  This is where the pretty steps in!

For a marbled look you can fold it up while it is wet and press it together good.  Then simply unroll to see your new design!

For a different look you can mist your coffee filters and then use water colors!  This is my favorite way to color them.

You will need 2 coffee filters for each carnation you want to make.  The more carnations the better!  When you are doing coloring them you need them to dry.  We decided to speed up the process and dry ours in the sun!  This gave the kids some good exercise because the wind kept blowing them away!

Once they are all dry stack them up and get ready to create beautiful flowers!

Look how pretty!  Imagine the crafting possibilities!  Now this is how you assemble the flowers.  Take two coffee filters at a time.  Stack them one on top of the other.  Push the center down into your hand and twist!  Secure with tape if you like.  We skipped the tape and just twisted our fuzzy sticks around it so that it secured it and created the stem in one step!  Poof out the “petals”.  Continue until all your filters are pretty carnations!  That’s it!  These look gorgeous bunched in a vase together!

We attached ours to the handle bar area of the bike.  Isn’t it pretty!???

How To Make an American Flag

This is great to secure to the back of your child’s bike!  Super easy!  I did not make my girls count out the perfect amount of stripes or stars.  This is supposed to be a stress-free crafting day!

Supplies needed:

• Elmer’s X-TREME Glue Stick
• Red, White and Blue Construction Paper
• Star Stickers
• Scissors or paper cutter
• Skinny wooden dowel

I had wanted to get a star paper punch but was unable to find any paper punches like that at Walmart.  I wish they brought back the larger crafting section like they used to have.  I miss it.  Instead we bought a package of those star reward stickers.  The pretty shiney ones.  These ended up working perfectly!

First start with a sheet of White Construction paper and cut in half so that you have two rectangles.  You only need one for each flag you make.  Then take your red construction paper and cut red strips for your stripes.  Out of the blue cut a blue square for the blue of the flag.

Glue all the pieces to the white construction paper.

Then use the silver star stickers to put the stars on the flag.

Apply glue to the back of your flag on the edge near the stars.  Apply glue to the dowel, just on the parts that the paper will wrap around.  Tightly roll the flag around the dowel.  Hold for a little bit applying firm even pressure.  (Yes, I know my nails need painted but due to my illness I can not preform these tasks…they only get painted when Morgan wants to paint them for me.)

Set the flag aside to dry, try to keep your kids from waving them around so that the glue has time to set.  I am still amazed at the strength of this glue stick!  Love it!

How to Make Spoke Covers

I totally did this as a kid!  I think everyone had them!  This is so simple!

Supplies needed:

• Straws (we found ours in the 4th of July section at Walmart)
• Small scissors

Cut the straws in small pieces.  If they are bendy straws cut the bendy part out and set aside for the next craft.  We cut ours into a few different sizes.  Now mom, you may have to do this part, but Emma who is 5 was able to do this on her own!  Using small scissors you need to cut a slit all the way down the length of the straw.  That’s it!

These will be placed over the spokes on the bikes.

How to Make a Patriotic Necklace

This is a great craft for all ages!

Supplies needed:

• Curling Ribbon (we chose red)
• Straws (same as those used in the last craft)
• Pony Beads in patriotic colors
• Scissors

Using the same straws as the last project, let your child cut them into different sizes to use as beads.  Remember how I said to save the bendy pieces when you cut the spoke covers?  Add those in as well for a different bead texture.  We also alternated the straw beads with Pony Beads!  Moms, tie a Pony Bead at one end securely so that your child can bead her necklace without the beads falling off!

How to Make Beaded Handle Bar Decorations

These are super simple for all ages!

Supplies needed:

• Patriotic Pony Beads
• Curling Ribbon

Cut lengths of curling ribbon, you will need 6 for each bike.  This way you will have three on each side.  Tie a Pony Bead at the bottom of one end so that the beads don’t fall off.  Then have your child put about 9 more beads on each ribbon.  Tie to secure and you will have an extra length of ribbon.  Take three beaded ribbons at a time and tie around the handle bars.  Leave a length of the ribbon available to curl with scissors.

How to Make Flames for Your Bike

My girls are hot rods and wanted flames on their bikes!  I figured that this would be a good test as to the strength of the Elmer’s X-TREME gluestick!

Supplies needed:

• Elmer’s X-TREME glue stick
• Red Foam Sheets
• Scissors

Mom, you made need to do this part.  Cut a cool flame shape out of the Foam.  Let your child use the Elmer’s X-TREME glue stick to adhere the flames to their hot rod bikes!  You’ll need to apply firm pressure so that the glue has time to set.

Fun Stuff!  Now you use the crafts you made and decorate your bikes!

We also made some crafts using the Elmer’s Classic Rainbow ‘n Glitter Colors.  These are so fantastic!  I need a set of them just for me!  They are washable paint pens, so no fear for mama’s!  Our craft was not dry and finished so we will save that for another time!

This project is featured on the Glue ‘n Glitter Website!

All content is my own, all opinions are my own.  This project has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Elmer’s #gluenglitter #collectivebias

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Girl on Fire

Photographer at Loudmouth Photography

Brandy is the wife to a carpenter/musician and the mother of 3 amazingly awesome homeschool/unschooled girls. Brandy is a Photographer as well as a Coach for the Weebellion as part of Rolling Rebellion Jr. Roller Derby. Brandy is passionate about many things and suffers from a very painful and degenerative neurological disease called CRPS/RSD.

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