These 4th of July pinwheels would make a great party activity, camp craft, or simply summer rainy day fun!

Related Posts: Summer Party Games, Watermelon Carving, Luau Bingo Game

4th of July Pinwheels to Print	Stars and Stripes 4th of July Pinwheel	4th of July Fireworks Pinwheel
Stars and Swirls Patriotic Pinwheel	American Quilt Pinwheel	Red White and Blue Stars Pinwheel

More 4th of July Kids Crafts

Red, White and Blue Pom Poms

4th of July Crafts and Ideas

4th of July Coloring Pages

Easy Friendship Bracelets

But I do have one trick up my sleeve that I know you will want to learn – and that’s how to make one of those sliding knots so that you need no clasp, and so that the bracelet is adjustable for any size wrist. I learned this knot in college as a rock climber under it’s other name, the Double Fisherman’s Knot. I’ve also heard it called a Chinese Sliding Knot.

Either way, it’s one of the most handy knots you will ever learn to make – because the beauty of this knot is not just that it is adjustable, but also that the more you pull on it, the more it tightens itself.

How to Tie a Sliding Knot

How to Tie a Sliding Knot Diagram

The sliding knot diagram is easy to follow, but it can get a little tricky if you create the knot loosely and then tighten it sloppily. My advice: be really careful about keeping all the strands in place as you tighten it – trust me, it will save you plenty of headaches and tangled cording later.

Make a friendship bracelet with a sliding knot

Here’s a picture of the sliding knot in action on the back of the braided friendship bracelet.

What You Need to Make These Easy Friendship Bracelets

• Leather lacing (in at least three colors for the braided bracelet).
• Six wooden beads with bead holes big enough for the leather lace to fit through (for the beaded bracelet).
• You can also use colorful nylon cording instead of leather for either of these friendship bracelets.

For the beaded friendship bracelet, first cut the end of the leather lace at an angle, which will make it easier to slide on the beads. Then simply tie a regular knot, slide on a bead, and repeat until all the beads are on your bracelet.

Finish off with the sliding knot.

Cut the leather lacing for easy beading

Easy Friendship Bracelet with Beads

For the braided leather bracelet, knot together three strands of leather laces. Keep one of them longer than the rest on the top end, because you will use it to tie the bracelet off.

Braid the laces, then tie another knot to keep the braid together. Then simply clip off two of the three stands near the knot as shown in the first photograph below.

Finish off with the sliding knot.

Braided Leather Friendship Bracelet

Easy Braided Leather Friendship Bracelet

Be sure to check out all of our camp crafts and teen crafts while you are here! One that is hugely popular is this nightlight made from Mod Podge and a recycled plastic drink mix container.

I don’t know how kids feel about Anthropologie, but us adults sure seem to swoon over their artistic decor and design! Drool! These bottles are not hard to make – and certainly cost tons less than the $88 – $128 that similar seashell bottles are selling for on the Anthropologie website! They would look so pretty on a windowsill or decorating a bathroom counter. And with a shell, a little art clay, and a simple bottle, your kids can make a whole set of them to give to any beach loving friend or family member!

Anthropologie Inspired Shell Bottle Toppers Craft

Related Pages: Beach Crafts, Stick Crafts for Kids, Christmas Sugar Cookies

Original craft inspriation from Anthropologie:

Anthropologie Shell Bottles

They have actually used metal to seemingly weld the shell to the top of the bottle. Since that’s a technique that’s a little out of reach for most of us, I’ve found it’s easy to recreate the look using polymer clay instead.

Seashell Bottles Craft Materials

You’ll need a glass bottle with a cork stopper. I got mine on Amazon and at Hobby Lobby.

A seashell

Black polymer clay like Fimo or Sculpey

E6000 glue or glue gun

How to Make Decorative Seashell Bottles

First, use a tiny screwdriver or other object to poke a small hole in the top of the cork. It only needs to be about 1/4″ to 1/2″ deep. This is going to partially stabilize the shell on the top of the cork while you work. So you may have to adjust the depth or width depending on your shell. This doesn’t need to be perfect and it can wobble a bit. The polymer clay will really end up holding it all in place.

Make a small hole in the cork bottle stopper

Now glue your shell into place on top:

Gluing the shell into the cork

Polymer clay needs to soften before you can use it. This would be a great thing for little hands to do! It’s kind of hard at first, but after a while it gets more mold-able. Start taking small pieces of the clay and pressing it around the base of the shell and cork. It really doesn’t need to be all that pretty, just do a lot of pressing on all sides to ensure the whole thing gets covered and is holding the shell tightly in place.

Adding polymer clay around shell and cork

It’s kind of up to you if you want to cover the bottle opening (making it impossible to open later) or just covering up the cork to the bottle top. It also depends on your bottle style – you can see that I covered up one, but not the other. Since these are primarily just for decoration, it didn’t really matter to me. If you want to put something inside of the bottle (sand, more tiny shells, etc.), you can do that before you seal up the clay around the opening for good.

You could actually be done at this point if you want to. But I preferred a smoother texture on the finished bottle than I was able to get with pieced together clay. So I took another chunk of clay and flattened it out to a thin, small pancake shape. I was able to then wrap that around the clay to give it a smooth finish. It still looked pieced together on the back of course, but that doesn’t matter to me because I’ll just be displaying it on a wall shelf.

Smoothing out the polymer clay texture

Wrapping it around the cork:

Wrapping the Clay around the finished shell bottle stopper

And here’s a closeup of the two completed seashell bottles:

Closeup of Shell Bottle Toppers

Remember, this is Day 4 of Twleve Days of Gifts Kids Can Make! 4 down, 8 more to go!

Related Pages: Recycled Kids Crafts, Flower Crafts, Leaf Crafts, Acorn Crafts

Be sure to check out all of our nature crafts on Craft Jr.!

Related Pages: Easy 4th of July Wreaths, 4th of July Coloring Pages, Printable 4th of July Bookmarks

4th of July Kids Crafts - Finger Puppets

4th of July Finger Puppets Craft Materials List

I’ve placed a photograph next to each finger puppet with the exact materials needed for each. All of them require a very easy to find set of stuff:

Pipe Cleaners

Pom Poms

Googly Eyes

Glue (Hot glue gun works best, but I’ve since discovered that even regular glue will suffice, it just takes longer to dry)

Wire Cutters (So you don’t ruin your scissors cutting the pipe cleaners)

How to Make These 4th of July Puppet Crafts

Please refer to the original Easter finger puppets post for general assembly instructions.

It explains the general instructions on how to wind the pipe cleaners around your finger and how to attach the pom poms accurately.

The Statue of Liberty Finger Puppet

Statue of Liberty Finger Puppet

Wind the puppet body base around your finger.

Make her torch by taking a 2-3 inch piece of glitter green pipe cleaner and winding it around the tip of a sharpened pencil to make a cone shape:

Lady Liberty Torch Assembly

Make Lady Liberty’s crown by forming a green pipe cleaner as shown below. Wrap the end around the rest of the crown to secure the points in place – then clip off the extra on the end.

Lady Liberty Pipe Cleaner Crown

Bend a 6 inch piece of green pipe cleaner into the shape of her arms, and slide it in between the body coils. Bend one up to hold the torch and one curled in front of her.

Glue the torch onto her left hand and then glue the red/orange small pom pom on the top to make it look like a flame. I found a medium sized red glitter pom pom that worked perfectly for this.

Glue the head onto the body.

Glue the green tiny pom pom on the front of the face, then glue the two googly eyes right on top.

American Eagle Finger Puppet

American Eagle Finger Puppet

Wind the puppet body base around your finger.

Bend a full piece of brown pipe cleaner into the shape of wings as shown.

Slide the wings in between the body coils.

Bend a one inch piece of yellow pipe cleaner in half then curve it a little bit into the shape of a beak.

Glue the white pom pom head onto the eagle body.

Glue the beak and googly eyes onto the eagle’s face

Uncle Sam Finger Puppet

(Note that I also added two tiny white pom poms for buttons on his coat!)

Uncle Sam Finger Puppet

Wind the finger puppet base.

Make Uncle Sam’s top hat with a blue and red pipe cleaner – use the instructions from my Cat in the Hat craft:

Pipe Cleaner Top Hat Instructions

Bend a two and a half inch piece of pipe cleaner into the shape of a bow tie as shown.

Glue his pom pom head onto the puppet body.

Glue the medium white pom pom onto the bottom of his face for his beard.

Glue Uncle Sam’s nose and googly eyes in place.

Glue his top hat onto his head, then glue the bow tie and white buttons onto the front of his coat.

Be sure to check out all of the Woo! Jr. 4th of July kids activities while you are here, too!

4th of July Decorations for Kids to Make

This kids craft would make a great hostess gift for a 4th of July party, or just to make and hang as a front door decoration. Even though the end result is a pretty ‘grown up’ craft, I was surprised as to how much my kids wanted to participate. When they saw how easy rag wreaths are to make, they were all over it!

Related Posts: Watermelon Carving Ideas, 4th of July Coloring Pages, Summer Worksheets for Kids

How to Make Rag Wreaths

Rag wreaths are “easy peasy lemon squeezy” as my daughter would say! Plus they are an awesome stash-busting project, because you can use up a ton of those scrap fabric pieces that are too small to make much else with!

All you need is some wire, 1 yard of ribbon to hang the wreath (preferably wired), and between 1 and 1 and a half yards (total) of scrap fabric:

Next time I make one of these, I plan on being more precise – my strips were about 10 inches long and I ended up needing more fabric than I should have needed. I was extremely sloppy and random about tearing up my strips of fabric for this project. This meant my strips were a little too long and I ended up using about a yard and a half of fabric. If you prefer a little more precision, try to cut or tear your fabric strips into 1 inch by 6 inch pieces. If you use a heavier weight fabric such as canvas or denim, make the strips 7 inches long. Either way, though, you really can’t mess up a rag wreath – they look good no matter what!

I did find that it helps to fold the strips of fabric a bit before you tie them onto the wire. That way the outside print of the fabric was more likely to show (instead of the backside).

But really – this is it – tear up the strips and tie them on in random order.

How to Make a Rag Wreath

I told you it was easy peasy lemon squeezy! The kids thought so, too!

Kids 4th of July Crafts

Be sure to check out all of our 4th of July kids activities from Woo! Jr. websites for kids!

Teen sewing projects are great for adults, too – mostly because of the wonderful easiness and instant gratification they offer. I really love nothing more than to sit down at my sewing machine and have a finished project an hour or two later. Longer projects are fun too, but they frustrate my teen because she easily loses patience when things get tedious. I was the same way back then.

The best part of these easy sewing projects for teens is that almost all of them can be made with less than a yard of fabric – or sometimes even things you already have laying around the house!

Recycled T-Shirt Scarf	Recycled Denim Room Organizer Sewing Project	Easy PJ Pants Free Pattern	Easy Summer Top to Sew
Swimsuit Cover Up Tutorial	Reversible Bag Novice Level Pattern	Easy Drawstring Backpack Pattern	Newsboy Hat Pattern and Tutorial
Jeans Purse Craft	How to Turn Old Jeans Into a Mini Skirt	Cell Phone Case to Sew from Recycled Jeans	Beach Towel Blanket Sewing Project

More Sewing for Teens

These books on Amazon are perfect for teens who really love to sew!

One-Yard Wonders: 101 Sewing Fabric Projects; Look How Much You Can Make with Just One Yard of Fabric!

I own One Yard Wonders and I can’t say enough great things about this book! It’s great for both beginner and intermediate sewers and includes pattern pieces for all the projects in the book. Plus it’s only $15, which is what you would pay for only one full price sewing pattern!

Sew Teen: Make Your Own Cool Clothes

I don’t own this one – I found it while writing this post. Next time I buy books from Amazon, I’m totally buying this!

I typically like to do more sewing and clothing crafts & projects in warmer months. Summer clothes are just way more fun to make. And t-shirt refashions are one of those things that amaze me with the sheer brilliance of my fellow craft bloggers. How they come up with all of these amazing ideas is really beyond me. Every time I cut up a tshirt I end up not liking it so much and it becomes sleepwear. But I would totally wear some of these refashioned tshirt ideas any day!

Related pages: Teen Crafts, Recycled Crafts, Winter Crafts

More Cut Up T-Shirt Designs

For more t-shirt surgery brilliance, check out the T-Shirt Surgery Flickr Pool, and the 99 Ways to Cut, Sew, Trim, and Tie Your T-Shirt into Something Special and Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-Shirt books on Amazon!

So lately I’ve been working on finding projects for my teen daughter that are challenging enough for her not to be bored, but easy enough to give her a sense of accomplishment. She is turning into a little seamstress lately, but I’m hoping to widen her horizons with some of the teen-friendly crafts I’ve found below!

12 Crafts for Teens that are Easy But Cool

Easy No Knit Scarf	Easy Friendship Bracelets	No Sew Bikini (Really!)	Make Decorated Journals
Wishbone Necklace	Ribbon Belts	Recycled Jeans Purse	Night Light Recycled Craft
Decoupaged Clothespins	Decoupaged Hangers – via	Glitter Flip Flops	No Sew Fleece Pillows

For more teen crafts, check out these recycled crafts and winter crafts, too.

Related Pages: Printable Olympics bingo, Olympics coloring pages, Olympics kids activities

Olympics Crafts for Kids

Here are four Summer Olympic and Winter Olympic crafts for all Olympic Games:

Olympic Torch Kids Craft	Paper Plate Olympic Rings Craft	Olympic Medals Craft	Olympic Flags Craft for Kids

Vancouver 2010 Olympics Crafts

Have you checked out yet the absolutely adorable Vancouver Olympics Mascots site? Their names are Miga, Quatchi and Sumi, and they are so freaking cute I can hardly stand it!

Vancouver Olympics Craft - Sumi Paper Craft	Vancouver Olympics Craft - Quatchi Paper Craft	Vancouver Olympics Craft - Miga Paper Craft	First Nations Totem Pole Craft

Olympics Party Game

Check out our free winter Olympics bingo game over at Classroom Jr.!

More Olympics Printables

Olympic Medal Count Worksheet

Olympic Word Search

Printable Training Journal

Vancouver Printables and Olympics Activities