4th of July 4 X 4 Firecrackers

Step 5: Once the white paint is dry, use painter’s tape to tape around your tallest Firecracker. I adhered painter’s tape around the whole thing to make sure my spacing was right. Then I removed the tape where I wanted to paint red stripes.

Step 6: Adhere stars to the medium-sized Firecracker. There’s no particular way this should be done. Put the stars on however you like!

Step 7: After you’ve applied tape for the stripes and sticker stars, repaint the blocks with white paint to make a seal over your stars and stripes. This will prevent the red and blue paint from bleeding through as much. Here’s a tutorial on how to paint perfect cut lines.

Step 8: Once the sealing coat is dry, paint red stripes and blue over the stars. I used a foam brush for the stripes and a foam roller for the blue. I felt the foam roller did a better job. I ended up doing two coats of red and one coat of blue.

Step 9: When your paint is dry, remove the tape and stars. It can be a bit tricky to remove the contact paper stars. I used tweezers to remove them.

Check out the Firecracker on the left in the picture above. Somehow I missed sealing with white paint on that one and the bleed-through was pretty bad. There is still bleed-through on the others but not nearly as bad. It’s probably impossible to completely avoid bleed-through, using old wood like this, but it’s nothing a little sanding won’t fix!

Step 10: Give all of your firecrackers a final sand for a rustic look. The final sand will help to disguise any imperfections or paint bleeds. In the picture below, check out the final sand on the block on the right compared to the block not sanded on the left.

Step 11: Wipe down the firecrackers with a damp cloth to remove any sand.

Step 12: To give the firecrackers a bit of a vintage look, I rubbed homemade wood stain on them. This step is optional!

Step 13: Cut red felt into 3-1/4″ squares (if your 4 X 4 is actually 3-1/2″ X 3-1/2″) and adhere to the bottom of Firecrackers with a glue gun. This step is beneficial if you will be using your firecrackers as tabletop decorations. If you plan to put them on your front porch, you can skip this step.

Step 14: Tie jute around your smallest Firecracker.

Step 15: Finally, cut a rope into desired lengths. I used about 5″ for the tallest Firecracker and approximately 4″ and 3″ for the smaller two firecrackers. I found new garden shears worked great to cut the rope!

Step 16: Adhere the rope to the top of each firecracker using your glue gun.

Hi! I’m Bridget!

I create printables and DIYs to help you get organized and celebrate special occasions! It’s my mission to inspire you to get creative and find joy in the everyday!