Let’s Decorate For Independence Day With Our Town Square Gazebo Tealight!

Materials Used

We used several products and supplies in the making of our 4th of July tealight gazebo decoration. Below is a list of what we used.

• Independence Day Gazebo – 4th of July Decoration Tealight – Digital Download SVG
• Recollections cardstock
• Art Glitter Glue
• Brick Embossing Folder
• Fish Scales Embossing Folder
• Color Petal Ink
• Battery Powered Tealight
• Electric Cutting Machine: Cricut or Silhouette

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A Quick Note

This 4^th of July Gazebo has some small pieces so settle in with a good movie and take your time.  The payoff is AMAZING!!!!  We used the ‘intricate cut’ setting on our Cricut with a new mat and good blade.  Everything cut beautifully.

Layering The Sides

The sides of the gazebo are made of 8 panels, 2 with doors and 6 with a banister.  Make sure you assemble them in the order shown below so the doors end up opposite each other when done.  To start, we took the panels that are identical but without the tabs to connect to their neighbor.  We layered each onto a tabbed version.  This gives the sides of the gazebo some extra strength and stability.  With all the cut out portions, the sides can be kind of weak so having this extra layer helps a lot.

Decorating The Gazebo Panels

Once all the sides were double layered, we assembled the swag.  These are made of three layers, we cut the base in red, then followed with white, finishing with the narrow blue piece.  The door pieces also have stars on either end that we chose to cut in gold cardstock.  This is the fiddliest bit of the file, and takes some time and patience. With all of them assembled, you’ll find that there are 12 swags for the sides and 2 with stars for the doors. 

When all eight of the panels are decorated, you can attach them to each other.  Again, have them in order, making sure that the door panel is followed by three sides with banisters.  Add glue to the tab on the side and attach it to the neighboring panel until all 8 have been attached, creating an octagon shape. 

With the octagon created, fold in the tabs at the bottom and add glue.  Then place the octagon panel in the bottom to create the bottom of the gazebo. 

Putting Together The Gazebo Roof

You can set aside the gazebo for now and start working on building the roof.

The roof has a few pieces and it’s easiest to start with the top of the roof and work your way down.  The first piece is the octagon shaped piece that has cut out of it.  Fold along the score lines then add glue to the tab and attach to the neighboring panel, this will create a peaked octagon shape.

Next take the four panels with the cut-out railings.  Fold along the center fold line and fold the tabs.  Attach one tab to the bottom of the peaked roof, making sure the corners are lined up with the corners of the triangles on the peaked roof.  Once one of these panels is in place, move to the next one, attaching it to both the roof and the neighboring white panel.

Adding The Second Tier

The final part of the roof structure is next. Add glue to one of the tabs on the bottom of the structure and add the short side of the trapezoid shape.  Work your way around the roof shape the same as you did with the previous set of panels.

Once the panels are all attached, there are the smaller triangular tabs that connect to make a vertical part on the roof.  Fold these tabs and add glue, then attach them to their neighboring panel to make this part of the roof structure be vertical.

Decorating The Gazebo Roof

The next part of the roof assembly is adding the decorative panels tto the peak of the roof.  We chose to emboss the pieces to give them some texture then we added glue to the roof and attached each, making sure that the triangles are all the way to the peak.  It’s tempting to let them be down a little from the top, but this will result in some gaps between decorative panels.  Don’t put glue on the decorative triangles themselves, as they overhang the roof a bit and you’ll end up with extra exposed glue.

Once we had the top decorativep panels in place, we started adding the panels for the lower roof.

Building The Foundation

The gazebo itself is now complete.  Set it aside.  The next step is to assemble the foundation of the gazebo.

The foundation box is made of four panels that fold to create the eight sides of the octagon shape.  Fold along the score lines and attach each panel to its neighbor, creating an octagon.

Fold the bottom tabs of the octagon in and add glue.  Then place the octagon panel in to close off that side of the shape.  Make sure to apply pressure to the panel where it meets the tabs to create a strong hold.

Next fold in the top tabs and add glue to one.  Attach one side of the flat octagon panel to the tab, making sure it’s lined up straight and the corners align.  We then added glue to a couple tabs and secured the panel in place.  Once these were placed we added glue to the remaining tabs.  We found it easier to do this in sections so that we could focus on positioning a few tabs at a time.

Decorating The Foundation

Once this octagon box is complete, we started adding the decorative panels for the sides that create the stone look.  As this is a smaller gazebo, we only included plain panels for the decorative sides.  This will allow you to use patterned paper for decorating, or if you wish to do what we did, we used an embossing folder and ink to emphasize the brick like texture we gave the paper.  

Constructing The Stairs

There are two sets of stairs.  Fold along all the score lines and glue the tabs to the L’s on the end, creating stairs.  We found it helpful to use tweezers to help hold the L shape while the glue set.  The back of the stairs remains open with exposed tabs.  These tabs will be used to attach the stairs to the octagon.

With the stair structure done, you can add decorative panel.  Again, as this is fairly small, it’s a solid piece that allows you to use patterned paper or an embossing folder to decorate the stairs.  We chose to emboss and ink the decorative panel before adding it to the stairs. There are some score lines to help fold the stairs decorative panel. We added glue to the top portion of the stone panel and attached it to the top step, then added more glue to the stone panel and used a bone folding tool to help fold it onto the stairs and make the corners.

Attaching The Stairs

With the stairs complete, add glue to the tabs on the back and press the stairs firmly against the foundation. Make sure the bottom is flush with the foundation, setting it on the table for this step helps make sure it’s lined up correctly.  Add both stairs, making sure to place them on opposite sides from each other.

Adding The Gazebo To The Foundation

Now that the foundation is done and the gazebo is done, all that’s needed is to attach the gazebo to the foundation. Put glue on the bottom of the gazebo (or top of the foundation, your choice) and place the gazebo on top of the foundation. Make certain that your doors line up with the steps!