The items needed for this craft are toilet paper tubes or paper towel tubes cut in half, red, white and blue tissue paper, red, white and blue pipe cleaners and some patriotic ribbon, then lots of treats as a filler.  We used small candies but you could also put in small toys or balloons. Anything goes that would fit in the tubes.

Cut your tissue paper into about 10 inch squares.  You will want 2-3 layers of whatever color you are working with.

Roll your tube around the tissue paper.  You can either glue with a glue gun (with supervision if you have little kids!) or Elmer’s glue works also but will take a little longer time to dry.

Cut some of your pipe cleaners into smaller pieces and wrap these around the bottom of the tissue paper.  Twist tightly and then put the pipe cleaner into the end of the tube to hide it.  Don’t cut all of your pipe cleaners though.  You’ll  need some longer ones later.

Now fill your tubes with all of the goodies that you have gathered.

You can decorate the outside of your 4th of July Firecrackers by gluing on some ribbon but I think that some patriotic stickers would also look cute!

To close your tube, wrap a full length pipe cleaner around the top of the tissue paper and twist tightly. Make the pipe cleaner curly by wrapping it around a pencil.  We also fashioned a star popping out of the top.

Now you are ready for any 4th of July party with these fun poppers! Kid love cracking them open to find their surprises! 

Thank you to How Does She for a great patriotic kids craft!

Need a little more patriotic spirit?  Try out these crafts!

Kids Teeshirt              Popsicle Stick Flag

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On July 9th, my 19 year old daughter is going to Mexico, Mexico City as a missionary for our church. She will serve the wonderful people of Mexico for 18 months. Before leaving for Mexico she will spent 6 weeks at a Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah. At the MTC she will learn about missionary service and attend an intense “bootcamp” course on Spanish to help her learn the language.

We have been blessed with 5 children who have grown up to become best friends to each other. Two years ago we gained our wonderful son-in-law who is a perfect addition to the family, a year later our darling granddaughter was born. Our whole family is going to drive (again!) to Utah to drop my missionary daugher off at the MTC. There will be some serious tears shed by everyone when we send her on her mission!

This will be our 3rd road trip in about a month! This is what summer is all about, vacation and quality time with family and I LOVE IT! With all the vacationing going on I had to get organized early for the 4th of July, I fell in love with these 4th of July Banana Splits from Jamielyn at I Heart Naptime. If you haven’t been to her blog be sure to head on over and check out all her creative ideas! I found that adding 1/4 cup of melted paraffin wax to about 1/2 of melted chocolate really helped the chocolate stick to the banana and kept the chocolate from hardening before I could shake my 4th of July sprinkles on. After adding the paraffin wax dipping the bananas and adding the sprinkles was quick and easy! It’s a good thing these were so easy to make and taste so good, because now I have to go and get the laundry done so I can be ready to pack for our next road trip! Just sayin….’ This Pin Totally Rocks!

Print

4th of July Firecracker Bananas

Course Dessert

Author Adapted by Made From Pinterest

Ingredients

• Colored chocolate candy melts
• Bananas
• Lemon juice
• 4 th of July Sprinkles
• Cherries with stems
• Sherri's Stabilized whip cream
• Paraffin wax

Instructions

• Lay a large piece of wax paper on a cookie sheet
• Cut bananas into 1 1/2 to 2 inch sections
• Dip bananas into lemon juice, don't let the bananas sit in the lemon juice, it will make them soft.
• Melt chocolate candy melts and paraffin wax in a bowl.
• Dip bananas into chocolate, shake off excess chocolate
• Shake the sprinkles over the melted chocolate.
• Set on wax paper to cool.
• Add a dollop of stabilized whip cream.
• Place chocolate dipped cherry on top.
• Serve and enjoy!

Click on any of these pictures to see some more great 4th of July ideas!

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