Welcome friends! Today I am so excited to be hosting the Patriotic Porches Tour and to be celebrating all the summer fun and patriotic decor inspiration with fourteen special blogging friends! You can find the links to all of their beautiful tours at the end of this post.

 

To kick off the tour let’s take a look at how I have added some festive, All-American flare to my front porch for Independence Day and summer. Come on up and sit a while!

 

As you come up to the porch you can stop and smell the fragrant herbs along the way. My Rosemary is growing beautifully this year and smells wonderful!

 

 

It was super easy to create a patriotic porch this summer simply by adding some mini-American flags, banners, buntings, festive throw pillows and a few other vintage summery finds.

 

For a summer change I switched out an ornate French urn that normally holds this faux, spiral boxwood topiary for an Americana vintage crock with red wooden handles.

 

A vintage pressed back chair in the corner by the front door is used to display various kinds of flowers and plants year round. After trying many different kinds of colorful mixed annuals on the porch, I have found that ferns do best in the dappled shade. I love the simplicity of ferns in baskets or urns adorned with a single American Flag.

 

This primitive style Uncle Sam is a favorite yard sale find. He is our porch guest from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

 

 

 

 

It officially just turned summer a few days ago…”Hello Summer!” Time to celebrate!

 

What better way to celebrate summer and the Fourth of July than with a little picnic on the porch?

 

For today’s tour I repurposed an old trunk as a makeshift picnic table. A simple snack of fresh sliced watermelon and ice cold drinks is perfect to enjoy while sitting on the porch and socializing with friends and family. It just wouldn’t be the Fourth of July without sparklers either, so I placed several packages in a little striped metal bucket. Does anyone else have multiple packages left over each year?

 

A vintage Coca-Cola cooler serves it’s original purpose, (one of my all time favorite junkin’ finds), while a giant Coca-Cola bottle is used as a vase for a fresh cut Annabelle hydrangea from our beautiful bush which grows right beside the porch.

 

 

 

 

A simple basket is filled with picnic necessities and some cute dish patriotic dish towels from the Target Dollar Spot. I bought a couple of extra dish towels to make throw pillow covers for next year’s patriotic decor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I seriously cannot wait to cut into that watermelon! I have bought oh, about 12 so far this summer and they have all been duds! Keeping my fingers crossed that this little beauty will be a winner!

 

Our front porch was one of the things we fell in love with about our 1921 yellow brick home. We use it nearly every day of summer. Last summer my husband built the barn style doors which give us lots of privacy and make the porch feel like an outdoor room. There is plenty of room to sit on one of the antique chairs, comfy pouf, or even on the rug since the porch stays dry. Our family really enjoys sitting on the porch during summer rain storms too.

 

 

 

 

 

If you come to my house, you won’t get away without a music reference or music lesson! As I was putting the finishing touches on this post I remembered that I had an extra chalkboard in my junk stash. I wanted to use a patriotic phrase of some kind on the chalkboard, and what better lyrics than “Of Thee I Sing” for a music teacher? I often used this song as a vocal warm-up for my choirs (great practice for “ah” vowel sounds!) and also as part of patriotic and folk music units for my elementary music students.

 

 

“Of thee I sing” is taken from the Patriotic hymn, “America” (My Country ‘Tis of Thee) written by  Reverend Samuel F. Smith in 1832. The melody was well known at the time and variations of the tune had even been used previously by Haydn and Beethoven in various compositions.

 

 

Dear friends I am so glad you joined me on the porch today!  I hope you enjoyed it! If you would like to come inside and look around, you can see how I decorated the dining room with patriotic touches in An Early Summer Tour of My  Old Kentucky Home too.

 

 

 

Now it’s time to continue touring all of the beautiful Patriotic porches, patios and decks on the Patriotic Porches Tour!

 

 

Next up is Stacey at Poofing the Pillows. You won’t want to miss her beautiful tour! You can also visit all of the other tours right here:

 

 

Do you have any patriotic porch, decor, craft or recipe posts you would like to share? Please join me on Saturday, June 30-July 4, 2018 for a Patriotic Party!

 

 

Thanks for stopping by, and come back again soon!

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