Musical Stars and Stripes

CRAFT MATERIALS:
Regular and decorative scissors
Ruler
Red, white, and blue craft foam
Small hole punch
White paint
Small paintbrush or star stamp
30 small paper clips (ours were red, white, and blue)
12-inch wooden skewer with the sharp tips cut off
Ribbon or wire
13 bells (ours were 3/4 inch in size)

1. Cut out a 4 1/2- by 4-inch blue craft foam rectangle. Punch 4 evenly spaced holes on one of the long sides of the rectangle and 7 on the other.

2. Paint on the stars; we used a small star stamp.

3. Using scissors with decorative blades, cut out 7 red craft foam strips: three 1/2 by 8 inches, four 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. Cut out 6 white craft foam strips: three 1/2 by 8 inches and three 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches.

4. Punch holes in both ends of all of the strips and thread paper clips through all the holes.

5. Attach the 7 short strips to the bottom of the blue square. Thread 4 paper clips through the holes at the top of the blue square.

6. Slide all the pieces onto the wooden skewer to form the flag, then attach a piece of ribbon or wire to the ends of the skewer as shown. Attach a bell to the clip on each strip and let your colors fly.