stars & stripes for tops & toes

We can’t say enough about Independence Day, and we’re already counting down the days! It is such a magical holiday, so full of excitement and pride, it is easily one of our favorites. We love to dress up extra patriotically and while you’ll find lots of options in stores, why not recycle an old tee, or pair of sneakers and make your own?
4th of july, patriotic, kids, paradeHere’s what what you’ll need:

Paint brushes, tanks and sneakers (we got these at Kmart – $7 for the kicks, $3 for the tanks), spray paint and acrylic paint!

4th of july, patriotic, kids, parade
We made two kinds of tanks, one with spray paint and one with regular acrylic. You can tape off your lines, or freehand, either look super cool!
4th of july, patriotic, kids, parade
Read the step by step instructions after the jump!
4th of july, patriotic, kids, parade

Acrylic Tank:

We taped off this horizontal flag by first taping a large rectangle. Then tape right down the middle horizontally and vertically creating a plus sign “+” through the large rectangle. Paint the top left quadrant (hey look, Algebra finally pays off!) blue and let it dry. Remove the vertical piece of tape, and finish taping off the stripes. Once you have a six or so strips, paint the middles red (don’t paint the blue, obviously.) Let it dry and you’re done!

Spray Paint Tank:

Because the spray paint has a lot of over spray mist, to keep the tank looking less homemade, we made sure any area of the tank we didn’t want sprayed was completely covered by paper or tape. Tape it off just like the acrylic tank, but when you’re spraying the blue rectangle be sure and cover the rest of the tank, and vice versa with the stripes. For the stars, we cut out a few by hand and placed them on the blue before we sprayed. It has a real soft line which we like, if you want it to be more crisp, cut the stars out of tape!

Flag Sneakers:

These sneakers have a clear delineation line before the laces start so we use that as a guide. Paint the toe are of the left shoe blue, we put down small squares of tape beforehand to mark the “stars”. Then using a strips of washi, we taped off the stripes. These particular pair have stretchy laces that don’t come out, so we painted right over them. Otherwise, remove the laces before you paint!

6 Comments

  • Victoria
    June 3, 2013 at 8:19 am

    awesome.

    Reply
  • Kimberly Bonham
    June 3, 2013 at 1:26 pm

    LOVE this! What a great idea!

    Reply
  • shannon
    June 4, 2013 at 7:55 pm

    Can’t wait to make these shoes for the 4th! Thank you!

    Reply
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    June 16, 2014 at 6:50 am

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    June 17, 2014 at 5:01 am

    […] we live is the best celebration around. We couldn’t get enough of our painted patriotic wear from last year, so we kept the theme rolling for two more ideas to add to your 4th of July attire! The first is […]

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