Today I'm SO excited to be at SNAP Conference in Salt Lake City surrounded by 500 other talented crafty bloggers learning, creating, and celebrating the friendships we've made because of blogging!  (Have I said that before?!)

To share just a *little* bit of that amazing creativity,  I teamed up with Abbey from The Cards We Drew and  a large group of bloggers (all who also plan on being at SNAP) to create Crafts in a SNAP {15 Minute Craft Ideas}
My full tutorial is for a darling little patriotic project (Look at me! Getting jump on Memorial Day and Fourth of July already!!) made from the trendy paper drinking straws you see everywhere.  At the end of the tutorial are the links for everyone else projects!  Click around and check out all the quick and easy craft ideas from these fabulous bloggers!

Now.. onto today’s project:


The supplies for this are simple:
-Black cardstock or construction paper
-Paper straws (obviously mine are 4th of July themed to create a flag but you could make any shape out of any color. I found them at Hobby Lobby but I found a similar version on Amazon as well.)
-A Glue Stick
-Frame (I used these cheap RIBBA frames from Ikea)




To create the flag I cut down the straws to fit inside the opening in my frame mat. I am not sharing the exact measurements of my project because the finished size of the flag depends on the opening size of the mat.  Basically you can eyeball it.

Next glue down the straws with a glue stick.  Be careful of the rotation of the straws since secondary patterns will appear.  I double checked the size of the mat and made sure the flag fit.. which it did.  The problem is that the straws are so thick you can’t just stick it back in the frame.  You need to figure out who to float the mat in front of the yardstick. To achieve this I just glued a row of extra straws around the outside of the yardstick (make sure they will be completely covered by the photo mat. 
This is what it looked like when the mat was pressed flush against the glass and the actual straw flag was pushed back due to the ’spacers'
Wasn't that super simple?  Definitely less than 15 minutes! 

And here are some additional project ideas that will take you next to no time!