American Flag Tutorial

 

I got the idea for this great flag project in a copy of Women's World magazine.  I was standing in line at the grocery story when I saw the magazine and was reminded that I hadn't gotten a copy in a long time.  I bought this copy and loved the flag idea so much that I knew I had to make one.

 

They actually used paint sticks for the flag.  I didn't have any paint sticks, I'm sure I could have gotten some at Lowe's or Home Depot but hubby found some sticks in the garage that we could cut down and they would be about the same width.

We cut 7 sticks 12" long.

 

We cut 3 sticks 9" long that would be used as support on the back to hold the entire thing together.

 

Because of the cuts that were made the edges were had some small splinters on them.

 

I used some sandpaper and lightly sanded the edges.

 

I then made a pencil line on 4 of the 12" sticks 5" from the left edge.  The part to the left would be where the blue portion of the flag will be painted.

 

I got my red, white and blue paint and gave all the pieces 2 coats.

 

I started with the blue.  

 

Then painted the red and white on every other one.

 

I let the paint dry for a day before adding the buttons.

 

I laid out all the buttons a couple sticks at a time then hot glued them on.  I'm surprised I have any fingertips left after this project.  In the magazine directions, they used wood glue.  I used hot glue because I felt like it would dry faster and also because I didn't think the wood glue would dry clear.

 

After the buttons dried and I cleaned up any threads of the hot glue, I glued the 9" boards to the back of the flag.  I did use wood glue for this because I didn't think the hot glue would hold the pieces together well enough.  It's on the back and so you won't see the glue anyway so it didn't matter if it dried clear or not.

 

Hubby told me to put lots of weight on it and let it sit overnight.

That's exactly what I did.

 

This is what it looked like the next day.  Everything was nice and dry; and it was all held together.

 

Because I planned to hang it outside, I put 2 coats of clear Polyurethane all over.   

 

 After the front had 2 coats and had completely dried.  I put 2 coats of Poly on the back.

 

We then added hooks and wire to hang it.

 

I was going to hang it on my front door but it was just too little.

I had a fern on this hook that was dying, so I just got rid of the fern and hung the flag in it's place.

 

Such a fun project.  It did take me a little longer than I thought it would because of all the drying time with the paint and polyurethane; but  it was worth it in the end.  I was just telling hubby today that I could make something similar for every holiday/season.  What's the next holiday coming up?

Well, I'll get to that later....for now,  Happy 4th of July!!

 

I'm linking up with these parties....