Memorial Day Celebrations

How do you decorate your house for Memorial Day?  Or do you even decorate?  I do.  I am a big believer of Memorial Day.  Growing up, my parents would pack us into the car and drive to the cemeteries where my grandparents have been buried to place flowers on their graves.  But over the last decade, it's become much, much more to me.





My dad served with the Air Force in Iraq.  My Grandpa Cook served in Korea.  My father-in-law served in Korea.  And The Hubs had a great uncle who served in World War II, who died in combat in Japan, and then his brother signed up and went to Japan to serve.  I have other relatives and many friends who have served and are serving in the military.  And Memorial Day is another fantastic holiday for me and my family to remember their sacrifice and the sacrifice of their families.  So, during Memorial Day, my house gets blanketed in flags.  And it stays up until Independence Day.






My front yard is where I display most of my patriotic-ness.  Last year, I got Pinterest happy and made a couple of flag projects to display:

I wish I could find the tutorial for these.  Unfortunately I can't.  Basically this is just a straw wreath that I did not remove the plastic from (that way I don't have any little straw pieces poking through my yard).  I bought 3 skeins of yard - Red, White, Blue (DUR!) - and four wood star medalions which I gave a couple coats of white.

I first measured out where I wanted the yarn to change colors - basically all I did was divide the wreath up into fourths, and then took each section and made thirds (except blue) I wrapped  the wreath with the yard, rotating colors.  I tied each color off and tucked the ends under.  Then I hot glued the stars on and used white ribbon to hang it on my door (I have a tall door so I need to have a little length to the hanger  because I like my wreaths at eye level and surrounding my peep hole).

This little beauty is my pride and joy.  My first attempt at a Pinterest craft.  I saw this idea on Pinterest, but unfortunately none of them linked to a tutorial.  So, I had to wing it.  I grabbed a palate from The Hubs' office, bought some outdoor paint down at Lowe's (because I knew I was going to be keeping this outside), measured, painted, and stenciled.  Seriously not complicated.  And yes, I know my count of stars and stripes is off.  But honestly, I don't care.  I LOVE IT!  Now if I can just figure out how to keep some plants alive on the front porch.....it gets SCORCHING in there during the afternoon.





So there you go.  The only other thing I do for the holiday is hang up our flag out front and put some cute little flag pinwheels in the ground.  So here's to our patriots, our soldiers, our family and friends.  Happy Memorial Day!  Here's K1 with her class celebrating our flag.