4th of July Ideas / Plans

This may be really ambitious, but I have two weeks until the 4th and these are my plans...

* Cake  -  I want to attempt to make a cake, a red, white, & blue cake. I think I'm going to generally follow this recipe from Craftaholics Anonymous. Idealy I want the exterior to look a little something like this cake over at Lil' Luna.

Party City | Patriotic Cake Pops How-To

* Cake Pops  -  These seem to be popular and I want to try making them once... I think that since I will be using white cake for the actual cake, I'll do these in chocolate. I plan on using Party City's Patriotic Cake Pops How-To.

Party City | Red, White, & Blue Assorted Paper Lanterns 6ct

* Hanging Decorations  -  My current plan is to get some hanging paper lanterns and some paper fan decorations. Party City is just down the road, so it's convenient and they have lots of awesome stuff.

Party City | Red, White, & Blue Assorted Paper Fan Decorations 6ct

* "Luminaries"  -  I have tons of jars left over from our wedding. They've even been used for another wedding, but they came back. I'm thinking about doing some "center pieces" for outside tables like these ones from My Blessed Life. Maybe not sooo decorative though. I think I even have ribbon left over from last year's tags (which I made tons, so there are enough for this year!).

* Felt Garland  -  I spotted some really cute garlands over at the Land of Nod and thought "hey, I can do that"... I wanted to try and give it a red, white, and blue theme though. I'm trying out circles and/or triangles. Let's just say that cutting out felt circles by had sucks and I'm thinking that one won't turn out as well. They have awesome triangle ones too. Depending on how they turn out I will might be making more for my sister's baby shower. Or I might just buy the ones from the Land of Nod... I've already started and there will be more on that soon...

I think that's it for decor and festive food... We usually do a pot luck type of thing but provide main things. So, I also need to make hamburgers, hotdogs, beans, maybe fruit if no one is bringing any, and whatever else I come up with that isn't too difficult.

Wish me luck. Lots to do in the next couple weeks...