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At The Picket Fence with Vanessa Hunt

Where Ideas for your Home Meet Inspiration for your Heart

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July 3, 2013

Last Minute 4th of July Decor & Recipes!

Last Minute 4th of July Decor and Recipes atthepicketfence.com

Don’t you just love it when kids are singing “My Country Tis of Thee” and they say “sweet land of ‘liver’ty”?

Or when they are saying the Pledge of Allegiance and instead of indivisible they say invisible?

There is nothing quite like watching a child develop a sense of patriotism and pride in their nation and no time is that more true than on the 4th of July! This holiday is about being together with family and friends and celebrating the freedoms we are so blessed to have.

And it should also be about just enjoying the moments, not slaving over complicated recipes and elaborate decorations.

So, we’ve put together a simple collection of recipes, crafts and decor that you can do at the last-minute so that you can get out there and wave those flags, light those fireworks, eat that apple pie and celebrate our nations birthday with style!

4th of July Jello Firecracker Shots

Fourth of July Fire Cracker Jello Shots (kid and adult version) from www.atthepicketfence.com

Good Housekeeping Inspired 4th of July Decor

Good Housekeeping inspired 4th of July decor www.atthepicketfence.com

Recycled and Repurposed 4th of July Decorating

Seagram's Summer Tablescape Ideas from www.atthepicketfence.com

Patriotic Hand Pies

4th_of_July_hand_pies www.atthepicketfence.com

Pool Noodle Firecrackers

pool noodle firecrackers 3

Flag Mason Jar Lanterns from Uncommon Designs

Uncommon 4th of July Porch Flag Lantern 2011

Chocolate Covered S’mores from Ask Anna

chocolatecovereds2527mores191-600x655

Glow in the Dark 4th of July Shirt from Dukes & Duchesses

glow in the dark shirts

Told ya! Simple, easy and fun. Our kind of projects!

flag

We wish all of you, our friends, a very happy 4th of July…and liverty and justice for all! 😉

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8 Comments Filed Under: Crafts, Decorating, Desserts, Fourth of July, Holidays, Parties, Recipes Tagged With: 4th of July, 4th of July crafts, 4th of July decorating, 4th of July recipes

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Previous Post: « Recycled Patriotic Party Ideas for the 4th of July
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Yvonne @ StoneGable says

    July 3, 2013 at 6:20 AM

    Thee sure say HAPPY 4TH! What adorable ideas!!! I’m making those hand pies for my crowd coming on Saturday! Thanks!

    Reply
  2. Amy@TheBlissfulBee says

    July 3, 2013 at 7:09 AM

    SO many great ideas!! I would love for you to share on my new {Work it Wednesday} linky party if you get the chance!!

    xo
    amy
    https://theblissfulbee.com/work-it-wednesday-no-4/

    Reply
  3. Anna says

    July 3, 2013 at 7:56 AM

    Thank you for including me!!! 🙂

    Happy 4th friends!

    Reply
  4. Ellen says

    July 3, 2013 at 10:05 AM

    I already bought the apple hand pie fixings, looking forward to that with my daughter. The pool noodle firecracker is a great idea! My storage box for the 4th went from not much to popping full this year. Thanks for the wonderful ideas!

    Reply
  5. Angela says

    July 3, 2013 at 2:23 PM

    Great ideas, ladies!!! Have a wonderful 4th!!~~Angela

    Reply
  6. Shannon @Fox Hollow Cottage says

    July 3, 2013 at 3:30 PM

    Happy-Happy 4th of July to you Vanessa and Heather 🙂 Enjoy the day!!
    Pinned this great idea post, lots of great inspiration.

    Reply
  7. Micah says

    July 4, 2013 at 12:32 AM

    Your 4th of July ideas are awesome! This 4th I’m decorating using lights made from my unused Christmas lights and dyed cupcake liners. It turned out very good! It will provide awesome ambiance as we watch the local firework show!

    Reply
  8. bj says

    July 5, 2013 at 9:23 AM

    Love these ideas…
    Came by to link to the Fri party…??
    🙂

    Reply

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Happy Friday!! I’m working on a blog post to sha Happy Friday!! I’m working on a blog post to share all of the details of our family room shelving makeover but I’m super impatient and just had to give you all a sneak peek!! We are SO happy with how they turned out and it finally looks like I’ve always envisioned. Our quick fix years ago (scroll to see the before photo) never felt quite right but now? Soooo much better!! 🙌🏻 Big shoutout to our amazingly talented friend Matt @redemptive_woodworx for bringing our vision to life and doing such impeccable work.

I hope you all have a great start to the 4th of July weekend and make sure to check my stories later for Friday Funnies!
The month of June is coming to a close and it has The month of June is coming to a close and it has been JAM packed! The highlight by far though was my son's graduation from high school. When I started blogging, he was only 6 years old and some of you have been apart of my community here for that entire time. Now, he's 19 and there is a reason parents are told not to blink because the years truly do go faster than I ever could have imagined. He has become such an incredible young man we are so excited to see how God is going to unfold the next chapter of his life. We celebrated with parties galore (SO many open houses to attend!) and made memories we'll forever cherish. My mama heart was filled to bursting with the joy of it all! Now we're taking some time to just enjoy these warm, summer days making even more memories because, when you’re at this stage of parenting, you know all too well how much you need to grasp every opportunity to spend time together.

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“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts o “And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Happy first day of summer dear friends!! I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted something new here but life has been crazy. I’ll have some new photos of house projects and life events to share with you soon but, got now, I’m just going to enjoy this gorgeous first day of summer after our ridiculously long, wet spring. ☀️
“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. Th “It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.” (Maud Hart Lovelace) 

Welcome June!
“No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom “No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.”
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This is one of my most favorite projects from my b This is one of my most favorite projects from my book Life in Season! 

Because, if heaven has a fragrance, I’m fairly certain it smells like lilacs.

I think that somewhere along the way the verse in the Bible that said, ‘heaven will smell like lilacs’ just got lost in translation. But it HAD to have been in there at some point, right?

When I bury my head in the blossoms (which I absolutely MUST do every single time I walk past them), I immediately feel a stirring in my soul.

It seems like I wait forever for my lilac tree to bloom. Every year I anxiously watch as the buds begin to form on the branches and then when the blossoms finally burst forth I begin that agonizing process of deciding the absolute perfect moment to snip them and bring them inside.

And then, after all of that waiting and watching it’s just over…done. Because, unlike heaven, lilacs don’t last for an eternity. So, making my own lilac room spray seemed like the perfect way to enjoy their fragrance long after the blossoms have faded.

Here’s how to make it! Ingredients: Water, Vodka, Lilac fragrance oil. Directions: Fill spray bottle with 50/50 ratio of water to vodka. Add 12 drops of lilac oil. Give it a shake, spray and if the scent isn’t strong enough, simply add a few more drops of lilac oil.

Once you’ve made this lilac scented room spray you will be very tempted to spray it in every room in your house. And someone may want to use it in the bathroom to cover up other less…ummmm….pleasing aromas.

But, do not, I repeat do NOT, let them.

You’ve captured the fragrance of heaven in a bottle and you wouldn’t want to go and tarnish it now would you? 😉
We had two back to back days of sunshine (the most We had two back to back days of sunshine (the most we’ve had in a LONG time) and now we are back to pouring rain. This has officially confirmed what I’ve know to be true for awhile now.

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Two of our bathrooms are also in need of major makeovers. And we’ve saved up enough money over the years to tackle those projects. But, for the most part, we made the decision to use the bulk of that money in another way. While we knew that it was financially wise to invest in our house, we also knew that the greatest investment we could make was in our children. 

I’ll admit, there are times where I see other people doing massive overhauls of their entire home in a matter of months and I feel a prick of envy. But, we decided that if our choice was between waiting a bit longer to enjoy a renovated bathroom or going on adventures as a family, we would choose adventures every time. And we don’t regret that decision for a single second. It’s not that we haven’t tackled home projects (we’ve done a lot!). It’s just that it’s been a slow and steady process. 

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