Stars for the 4th of July!

Hope everyone is having a lovely 4th of July!! When planning decor for this fun summer holiday, images of stars and the beach came to my mind. Combine those two images, and I got starfish!!

My idea was to create a welcoming arrangement that captured the colors and themes of the 4th but had a soft, natural, and whimsical appearance.

For this project, I gathered a couple dozen starfish and painted a third of them red, a third of them blue, and left the rest in their white color.

Heavily watering down a small amount of red and blue acrylic paint allowed me to keep the hues soft and translucent. Using a large brush, I painted each starfish in a few quick brushstrokes.

After letting the paint dry, I secured each starfish to a bamboo stick using a sage green twist-tie.

To keep with the beach theme, I stuck several of the starfish and their sticks into a clam shell pot overflowing with succulents.

Some starfish rest on the table around the large arrangement, and some even cling to the large tree branches I found in the neighborhood. These barnicle-looking branches give another dimension to the nature inspired scene.