Do you love decorating with red, white, and blue during the summer months? I do too! And today, I can't wait to show you how to make a painted patriotic drop cloth bunting!

Have you seen those gorgeous patriotic buntings swagged on fences and porches? I have seen them all over magazine pages, Pinterest, and Instagram, and I love their charm.

How To Make A Painted Patriotic Drop Cloth Bunting

I'm Kelly from thetatteredpew.com, and I can't wait to hang out with you here on the MMS MilkPaint™ blog today!

I have decided to make some of my own buntings for our fence out front for the summer months! And of course, I just knew the gorgeous MMS MilkPaint™ colors (Flow Blue and Tricycle) on drop cloth would be perfect. Drop cloth projects are my favorite, and so is MMS MilkPaint™, so putting them together was a no-brainer for me. They’re the perfect marriage!

Did you know that you can use MMS MilkPaint™ on fabric? Well, you sure can! And did you know that MMS MilkPaint™ is made in the USA? Yep! A win-win combo if you ask me!

Let me walk you through the steps of this easy and fun patriotic project! Spoiler alert… They turned out totally awesome!

Step 1 - Gather Supplies

Here is what you will need for these painted patriotic buntings made from a drop cloth.

●      MMS MilkPaint™ in the colors Flow Blue, Tricycle, and Ironstone

●      Paint Brushes

●      Glass jars

●      Mini handheld mixer

●      Drop cloth fabric (I used a 6x9 ft canvas drop cloth)

●      Painter’s tape

●      Scissors

●      Old towel, sheet, or paper to protect the surface you paint on

Step 2 - Mix Up Your Paint

The first thing I always do after I gather my supplies is to mix up my paint. I like to give it time to settle a bit before I get to work on my project.

My favorite vessels to mix MMS MilkPaint™ in are glass jars, mostly because they are easy to wash, and I love seeing the paint color through the glass. For these buntings, I knew that I would need to mix up a lot of paint.

I used 4 tablespoons of water to 3 tablespoons of MMS MilkPaint™. I did this for each color and used my mini handheld mixer to mix up the paint. This amount of paint ended up being enough paint for about 1/3 of each bunting strip (per color).

Step 3 - Prep Your Drop Cloth

While my paint was settling, I opened up my 6X9 drop cloth to see how many bunting strips I could cut it into.

TIP: Purchase a drop cloth that doesn't have random seams in it. I used the brand Melca from Amazon for this very reason.

Luckily the drop cloth was folded into 9-inch sections. Nine inches was too small. So, I doubled this to 18 inches which allowed me to cut the cloth into four 18inch wide strips, with each strip being 6 feet long.

It was perfect!

One of my favorite parts about using drop cloth fabric is that it tears easily. I snipped the cloth at 18 inches and then used my hands to tear/rip the strip. It was so easy and stayed straight due to the fold in the cloth and my initial snip.

I repeated this step 3 times and was happy to have four total buntings!

Step 4 - Ironing And Taping The Cloth

Each strip had some wrinkles and creases from where it had been folded, so I took out my iron and smoothed those out.

Next, I grabbed my painter’s tape. With each strip being 18 inches, I divided this by 3 for the number of stripes I wanted to paint on the bunting. This came out to 6 inches.

So, every 6 inches, I used the tape to mark out my stripes for painting.

This worked perfectly!

Step 5 - Painting the Buntings

This is where the fun began! I laid out my towel on my table and then laid the bunting on top of it. I did this in case the paint was to bleed through the drop cloth.

I started with the Flow Blue strip first. And can I just say that I am in LOVE with this gorgeous color? It's perfect in every way.

It went onto the drop cloth canvas so smoothly and had great coverage!

Then, I moved on to the red Tricycle strip, and the red color really popped off of the cream canvas. The minute I saw it, I was so happy with the color.

Since I was painting outside, the paint dried very quickly. As I mentioned above, I had to mix up more paint a couple of different times to complete each strip. This helped and gave each strip more time to dry.

Each bunting takes about 30 minutes total to paint, not counting the cutting, ironing and taping!

Step 6 - Deciding Not To Paint The Middle

I had originally thought I would use the paint color Ironstone for the white strip on my buntings but at the last minute decided not to.

Once the Flow Blue and Tricycle paint was dry, I removed the tape and loved the crisp line. I worried that I wouldn't be able to add the Ironstone color crisply and neatly up against the other two colors.

The creamy canvas color was perfect for the patriotic color scheme, so I skipped the third paint color. I love the vintage look it has!

Styling The Painted Patriotic Drop Cloth Bunting

In the end, because of the time it took to paint each bunting, I only painted two total. I hope to paint more when I find the time because they turned out so cool!

I truly love how they look, and I had so much fun styling them. I'm pretty much obsessed with using MMS MilkPaint™ on drop cloth fabric now and want to do so many other projects like this one! So many fun ideas are brewing in my head!

Don't they look so charming on our front picket fence!?

I tried it out as a runner on our back outdoor table and then tried it as a runner on an indoor tabletop! Love!

How To Make a Painted Patriotic Drop Cloth Bunting

These buntings are simple to create and have so many different uses for patriotic summer decor! The MMS Milk Paint colors Flow Blue and Tricycle could not be more perfect for patriotic projects. Hopefully, this post has inspired you on how to make your own painted patriotic drop cloth bunting.

How would you style your painted patriotic bunting?

I would love for you to join me over on my blog - thetatteredpew.com - for other fun DIY and drop cloth projects!