Getting Patriotic

• Covering your canvas is where creating your Memorial Day float can be a lot of fun. You will want to start with covering the actual surface of the float. A great idea is to use red, white and blue floral sheeting that will quickly and easily cover any area, big or small. Once you have chosen your floral sheeting you'll need to think about how to bring your display alive with other decorative elements.
  
  

Memorial Day Float Themes

• Your Memorial Day float theme is very important as it will help guide you in choosing the right decorative elements. You could choose to create an Uncle Sam float with inflatable figurines of Uncle Sam or even styrofoam cutouts of him.
  Why not consider creating a military theme and have props such as helmets, uniforms and camouflage. You can have members of your creative team dress up in the uniforms or even ask local soldiers to ride on your parade.
  Instead of paying tribute to all soldiers you could specialize a bit more and pay tribute to the soldiers from a specific war such as World War II with uniforms from that era or even a re-creation of scenes. You could create a moving memorial to local soldiers from your area that died in a specific war.
  
  

Memorial Day Ideas

• Memorial Day is a day of remembrance so you can't go wrong with being patriotic on your float. You can start with adding small flags around the perimeter of your float; you may even buy a banner of flags that you can string around the perimeter.
  If you have a party store in your area you may find that they have some simple props that you can use that will help you decorate your float nicely. If you are going to have a generator on board for electrical access you might think about buying some of the inflatable decorations as there are often flags, Uncle Sam, and other patriotic décor.
  Poppies have significance for Memorial Day so you may want to figure out a way to incorporate poppies such as throwing them to the crowds or having pots full of them placed around the float. The significance of poppies comes from "In Flanders Fields" which is a poem written by John McCrae.
  Consider adding music, as there are many compilations of patriotic music to be purchased or even add a trumpet player to the float playing patriotic music or Taps, which is often associated with Memorial Day.