Patriotic Summer Decor

Hey y'all!  Happy Independence Day!

I thought I'd share a bit of my patriotic summer decor with you today just in case you decide to check in after you're stuffed full of hot dogs and watermelon, or while you're waiting for the fireworks to start.  : )

Not long after I got the gallery wall put up, I added some decor to the opposite wall, the one behind the couch.  I've had it up for a good long while now, but never got around to sharing it. 

I've had this shelf for almost as long as I've been married, but it's getting a little war torn.  If you look closely you can see that it no longer sits straight.  After 6 moves in 12 years it's gotten a bit warped.  But I don't mind too much, I still love the style of it as much as I did when I bought it.  I've also had the picket fence flag for my entire marriage.  The first 2 years of having my own home I had Americana style decor, but then I sold off almost everything and started a new style.  The flag was the one thing I couldn't part with, though, and I still put it up every summer.

I wanted to add lots of touches of red and blue to the house to evoke a sense of patriotism without being like, "here's a hundred flags flapping in your face."  I used lots of non-flag items, like a wooden cheese box, baking powder tin, and a vintage tea towel to accomplish the look.  The picture on the little clipboard is of my father-in-law as a young boy.  Nothing says American summer as much as baseball, am I right?  A little glass milk bottle from Lima, OH (where we used to live) holds wildflowers from the woods next to our house.

This end of the shelf has another rusty license plate (love those things!), an old insulator, and a stack of vintage ice cream cups leftover from my ice cream social 2 years ago.  C&C Cola stands for Cantrell & Cochran, so it's meaningful to us since our last name is Cantrell.  

I shared the blue pillow on the Facebook group page a couple of weeks ago.  It was my only Fun Friday Find for that week, a 99¢ score at a thrift store.  I paired it with a throw pillow from our bedroom set that we're not using right now.  On the other end of the couch is a feed sack pillow.  I simply placed a throw pillow down inside the feedsack and folded the ends over.  And there stretched out taking a nap is our little kitten, Snuggles.  She was only 4 weeks old and weighed 1lb when we found her, but now she's 12 weeks old and weighs about 2.5lbs.  She's so playful and funny and the kids are just loving her.

That's it for me today!  I'm off to fix a big breakfast for my visiting family and then I have lots of cooking and baking to do for the day.  Hopefully the fireworks show won't get rained out tonight.

I hope you all have a happy and safe 4th of July!