Hello everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! Today I am excited to be joining a talented group of blogging friends for our monthly Pinterest Challenge hosted by my sweet friend, Cindy of County Road 407. If you are coming over from Our Southern Home or if you just happened to stop by today, I am so glad you are here! This month’s challenge is to create a patriotic/Fourth of July vignette taking cues from this gorgeous Pinterest image by Mary of Home is Where The Boat Is:

Mary always designs the most beautiful spaces! In this photo she used several simple accessories to create an adorable patriotic vignette. It is super easy to create a farmhouse style Fourth of July vignette with these elements:

– Mini-American flags

– Pretty vintage or vintage style pillows with patriotic colors and varying textures

-Chippy garden furniture 

-A rustic table topped with a basket tray styled with patriotic table linens and ironstone dishes with red or blue patterns

-A mason jar full of sparklers or other Fourth of July goodies

-A large galvanized watering can filled with American flags 

-A basket of red, white and blue flowers

I really didn’t want to spend any extra money for this challenge so I shopped my house for every day decorative accessories that would work. Then I rummaged through my patriotic bins to find similar items to create my own patriotic vignette. This week I had already added some patriotic touches around our home for Memorial Day, so it was quick and easy for me to put together a Fourth of July vignette for today’s challenge.

We are still battling pollen on our porch and patio, so I created the vignette in our dining room. I started by styling up our 100+ year-old farm table with a farmhouse style basket tray centerpiece using key design elements from Mary’s photo as inspiration. Instead of using real red, white and blue flowers in a basket, I filled a favorite ironstone pitcher with some pretty faux flowers. The cute patriotic daisies came from Dollar Tree.

All of my vintage mason jars are full of little vintage treasures, so I repurposed an empty pickle jar for this vignette. I filled the jar with festive paper straws, colorful bottle rockets, and two mini-flags. I tied some left over fabric scraps around the jar to dress it up. Faux strawberries and a pretty ceramic berry basket are my own special additions to the vignette (real strawberries are a favorite treat all summer at the yellow brick home!)

The sparkler boxes kept getting lost down in the pickle jar, so I displayed them in a small ironstone creamer instead. The beautiful blue transferware antique ironstone platter is one of most favorite yard sale finds and I love to use it in my decor all summer long. I draped a simple, red grain striped dish towel across the basket to add more interest and texture.

I don’t have a big galvanized watering can anymore (I accidentally left mine too close to my garbage can after cleaning out the garage one summer, and someone scored a nice curbside treasure overnight!) but I did want to at least add something galvanized to my vignette. I filled a small olive bucket with faux herbs, patriotic daisies, and little cupcake flags. Since I didn’t decorate an outdoor space like Mary did, I brought the outdoors in by adding a chippy-shabby garden bird to the table. I also made a mini American flag table runner simply by removing the dowel rods from inexpensive flags and placing them on each side of the centerpiece basket.

Earlier this week on IG I shared a custom, patriotic rag wreath that I made for a friend. I had a few scraps left over, so I made a smaller rag wreath to hang on my corner china cabinet doors. I think it turned out so simple and cute! Even though wreaths weren’t part of this challenge, I know a lot of you love wreaths as much as I do, so I just wanted to share. Look for a DIY Patriotic Rag Wreath post on the blog soon!

I don’t have a white chippy garden bench like Mary’s, so I lined our antique church pew with red, white (ivory) and blue pillows, and I love it! I used another flag to “fake” an American flag pillow. I do plan to actually make an inexpensive flag pillow cover before the Fourth of July, and I will share all the details in an upcoming blog post. The red French farmhouse stripe painted pillow cover is another one of my super easy and inexpensive DIY’s (yet another blog post coming soon!)

I love decorating with red, white and blue and I will certainly share more of my patriotic decor in the dining room later this summer, but during June I have some simpler, early summer looks that I want to enjoy first. Now that Memorial Day is over I will keep out a few flags and my outdoor flag buntings, but I will put away anything that is specific to the Fourth of July until the end of June. I will remove the large flags and red striped pillows from the dining room, but I will be keeping the blue striped textiles around all summer.

I had so much fun  “practicing” for my Fourth of July decorating while participating in this creative Pinterest challenge, and I really hope you enjoyed my interpretation of this theme too!  I will definitely be sharing more patriotic decorating and craft posts all summer long, so be sure to stop by the blog often. You can also subscribe by email to receive a weekly newsletter with all my latest posts. I love getting to know you better!

*Just a note about our windows…the lead glass is faux! I have had several comments on them so I wanted to be clear that they are not original. Our home is almost 100 years old and the windows certainly look authentic and they are definitely in keeping with the character and style. I absolutely love them! We have newer windows but since our house was built in 1921 I wanted more historic looking windows. My husband used faux stain glass products from Hobby Lobby  to create the look and did an amazing job (there will be a DIY tutorial on the blog soon). Old windows can be charming, but it is better to consider a renewal by Andersen windows  or a similar company to make them more energy efficient. If you would love to have historic leaded glass windows and it isn’t within your budget,  you can always add history and character with a stain glass or faux leaded glass treatment like we did.

Now it’s time to see the other beautiful decorating ideas shared by all of the creative bloggers who are participating in this challenge. Next up is Barb at French Ethereal. Barb has a new home so I am excited to see how she is adding some patriotic touches there.  You can find links to all of the bloggers’ amazing posts via the link up below. I know you will enjoy them!

Thank you so much for visiting today!

Amber

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