Hi Friends and Happy Memorial Day!
Are you celebrating with family or friends today, have plans for hosting a meal, or how about some simple crafting for the celebration or entertaining little guests? This is such an EASY, almost mess-free, activity. Naomi and I used a similar method with the Granite Easter Eggs but with slight differences. This craft can easily be switched up, make stars, fireworks, flags, all, or some. You could make as many as you’d like (they don’t take long to dry) and put them out around your home/location, hang them off of branches, or create a banner.
Can I tell you a little sidenote? When I first tried out the flakes and food dye mixture in April, I grabbed the red and blue, trying to create purple. It didn’t work out BUT it did make this mix! I knew then, that come Memorial Day or even Fourth of July, we could have fun experimenting with different shades of blues/reds, intensity, and creating our own fireworks. So, join us in some Memorial Day fun! It’s all below.
*Click on photos for a closer look
What You'll Need
Heavy Weight Construction Paper or Banner Paper
Potato Flakes
Red & Blue Food Dye
Glue
Disposable Cups
Plastic Spoons
optional: Cookie Trays (to contain possible spills), Gel Pens or Other Writing Utensils,
The Steps
First decide about where you’d like to have your written message and do that now or leave space for it later.
We decided to write it later and start with the flakes. Each of our cups had 1/4 cup of flakes and initially 3-6 drops of each color in our cups. Mix with spoon thoroughly: this is where it differs from the Granite Easter Eggs craft. Mixing with the spoon leaves darker flecks of color but requires a bit more dye, so continue adding dye as needed.
*We eventually added a lot more red to one cup and blue to the other, so not to waste the flakes/cups we had already used and create the richer colors you’ll see further below.
Next, design your Fireworks with your glue on the paper. Make different sizes or squiggly lines. This is where you could do stars, flags or a combo of all.
This is where you’ll finally get to use the unique blend you’ve mixed. We sprinkled on some flakes, tilted the paper in different angles to cover all the glue and then carefully poured back into cup. Repeat if you’d like, otherwise you can add more dye to the cups to darken the flakes. Add those darker flakes in different areas or on top of your other work.
Optional: using a cookie pan under your paper will help catch any flakes that spill.
Lastly, write your message out with gel pens, crayons, markers or colored pencils.
That’s it!
Happy crafting and Happy Memorial Day friends!
Amanda and Naomi
To share: take a photo of your craft click on photo submission and submit the photo.
