{Hand-made Goodie of the Week} Wooden Firecrackers

Um, where did it go?

That's what I asked myself when looking over my blog this morning.  I posted this last week, but it magically disappeared.  And it's one of those things that only I would notice, since you guys never even got to see it, so how would you know that it was gone?!

So, yes, I know, it is way past the Fourth of July by now, but I really wanted to share this fun, fast project as it can be used for decor for our other patriotic holidays throughout the year.

Enough of me rambling, to the crafting!

These cuties took me only about a half hour to whip up.  And I love them!  

If you want to make your own {and I know you do!}, you'll need:

three pieces of wood: 1 7 inches long, 1 6 inches long and 1 5 inches long and all about 2 inches wide

Red, white and blue paint

Wooden star

Hemp or twine

Hot glue and paint brushes

I started with this block of wood.  It was left over from the posts of our fence.  Pre-cutting, it was about 4 inches wide.  I divided it in half on two sides and drew some lines.  Then, my brother-in-law helped me do the cutting-I don't trust myself with power tools while being pregnant.  Once I had four pieces, I had him cut two shorter-taking one inch off of one and two inches off of the other.

So they looked like this.  Now, my pieces were pretty rough and I wanted them that way.  I liked the rustic look of them.  So I just lightly sanded the edges and tops and bottoms to smooth them out so there wouldn't be rough edges to catch on things or scratch up the furniture.

Once they were sanded and ready to go, I painted them.  Each piece got two coats of paint, which I let dry in between coats.

Like so.

Then it was time to add the "wicks."  I used three pieces of hemp for this that I just cut at random lengths.

Then glued to the top of each firecracker.

So they looked like this.

Then I wrapped a piece of hemp around the whole thing a few times and tied it in a knot at the back, then slid the star in.

Here they sit with some of my other red, white and blue decor.

I quite like the way they turned out.  And since I had almost everything on hand already, they were super-cheap.  The only thing I had to buy was the little star, which was a whopping 79 cents at Michaels!