Sleepovers, Swimming in The Lake and Parades!

I remember when I was a little girl….yes, that was a long time ago…;)

…but I remember the weeks before the 4th of July and how our little town decorated lamp posts with red, white and blue bunting.

It was the days of Drive-In Movies, Brownie Kodak cameras, Leave It To Beaver and Kool-Aid!

Sleepovers, Swimming in the State Lake and 4th of July parades.

It was a time of screen door slammin’ and hop scotch and playing under the street lights until way after dark.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness”!

It was a time when young boys used clothespins to fasten playing cards to the spokes of their bicycle wheels so they could be in the parade that would go the whole length of downtown…which consisted of about 8-10 blocks.

And hay wagon floats pulled directly from the wheat fields, cleaned up a bit… and then decorated with red, white and blue streamers amid the bales of hay on a sweltering summer day.

I watched the movie “The Music Man” the other day and hearing the band playing “76 Trombones” made me want to sing along….

…and yes, I did sing along.  

All by myself!

Perhaps that is why I love to decorate every inch of my home for holidays, I love holidays and any excuse to decorate my home.

So yes, my dear readers…I have yet another decorating project for the 4th of July holiday.

And this is so simple and takes all of 5 minutes.

I am sure you have these items around your house or if you don’t,…they are so easy to come by….and they are not expensive.  I think I paid a dollar for the pinwheels and the carnations were $2.50 with 50 % off at Michael’s…and the little flags were $1.49.  I had the cone baskets but any little basket will do.

I found the pinwheels and little flags at Ace Hardware….wasn’t that where we always went when we were young? 

It may have been the only hardware store in town but it had EVERYTHING from baseball gloves to ice picks to fishing lures and worms.

And the flowers are red, white and blue carnations from Michael’s…and the cone shaped baskets I had in my garage.

NOW, what I usually have and did not have was a piece of green Styrofoam so I used the next best thing to fill my baskets….wadded up newspaper.  

I most likely will pick up a small piece of Styrofoam next time I go to Hobby Lobby but for now the newspaper works just fine. 

Soooo I stuffed in the paper and stuffed in two bunches of carnations and poked in three of the the pinwheels and two of the little flags and Waaah-Laaaaah! A hanging basket for my front doors. 

See?  5 minutes tops!  And I probably spent most of that time looking for Styrofoam.  🙂

Have a great week-end my friends…..and pop a little holiday decor on your front door. 

It will bring back childhood memories.

I’d love to hear from you!  Please leave a comment!