color bar pin

Our local Pride march is this Saturday, and it's always a celebratory, life-affirming occasion. I made this pin with thoughts of wearing it on the day, but naturally, any fan of rainbows — or whatever color combo you fancy — can make this pin too. I loosely modeled it after those iconic military bar pins, so you can pretend you're a major general in the army of love and equality. (Aww!)
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To make one, or many, start by cutting strips of tissue paper in your chosen colors. I went for the classic ROY G. BIV, without the indigo, because I think blue and purple pretty well cover that end of the spectrum; no need to get all medieval with the coloring. 

​Cut a piece of corrugated cardboard for a base. My rectangle is about a half-inch by 2 and a quarter inches. 

Cut the tissue paper into skinny strips; mine were about a third of an inch wide, and two to three inches long. Use a brush to apply matte Mod Podge to one end of the cardboard, and lay the first tissue paper strip on top, allowing the paper to hang off three sides of the cardboard. Brush on another stripe of Mod Podge, and overlap the second strip on the first.

Keep adding Mod Podge and overlapping strips until you've covered the rectangle with all six colors. Note: Some colors of my tissue paper — the green and blue — bled quite a bit. Just brush the Mod Podge only on those colors, then rinse the brush before continuing. If you don't rinse it, you'll smear greeny blueness all over your rainbow. It's no biggie to rinse, I swear.

Flip it over and trim the scraggly edges of the paper.

Brush Mod Podge onto the short edges and ends of the cardboard, and smooth the paper over them.

Do the same thing for the long edges, making a neatly wrapped package.

Now you've got a nice color-bar rectangle! All that's left to do is to glue a pin back to the back. Or, make it into a barrette by gluing a (you guessed it) barrette to the back. 

Happy pride day, or rainbow season, or whatever makes you feel happy today!
xo