Patriotic Decoration

This was a "use what you have" craft project I threw together last weekend. I've been looking at a piece of 4x4 in the garage for awhile, thinking about painting it up to be a firecracker for 4th of July. Turns out I already had red, white, and blue spraypaint, so I didn't have to buy anything.
This photo shows the piece I started by painting white. The other piece shows what it started out like.
It took several coats of white to get soaked in enough to cover. You'll notice the wood isn't in great shape, but that's okay. It lends a more "rustic" look to the finished product. The next step was cutting several stars out of adhesive-backed vinyl using my Cricut. I rubbed the edges down really well,

then painted the top section blue. Peel off the stars right away, then leave it to dry awhile. I had a fan running in the garage to help the drying process.

For the stripes, I taped off the blue section, then ran tape down the remaining length of the wood.

Make sure you really rub down the edges of the tape - then spray a couple coats of red.

Remove the tape immediately and let dry.
Here's the finished product sitting on the porch. It really catches your eye when driving past the house.

The best part was not spending any money to make it!