I am so proud to be an American. Especially with my husband serving in the Navy! I have also loved living in a Military friendly community and town. We see flags everywhere around town. This is our first Naval station… but it seems like our neighbors and this town is extra patriotic. Because of this, we NEEDED a Flag too!!! We bought a flag to put on our porch and it was great… except it’s extremely windy here. It eventually broke and would always get all tangled and bent. So I had to search for other options. All our neighbors have flags out and we sure couldn’t be without!!! Plus, don’t American flags just scream: watermelon, popsicles, warm summer nights, bbq, water fights and all things American? I love it.
In my search I came across this Pottery Barn Flag… $159!!!!!!!!!!! Ouch! can’t pay that right now… But I wanted it… So I decided to make it!
My version of the Pottery Barn Flag.
Pottery Barns flag is 50×27 inches. Mine is 48×32.5 inces… so a few inches different… but about 90% less of the price.
Supplies needed:
- old wood pallet (free)
- paint: red white and blue (I got mine from Home Depot)
- Painters tape
- Silhouette to cut out your stars (or star stickers)
- Vinyl (for the stars)
- Metal brackets for the backing to hold it together (3)
- screws
- a drill
- framing wire for the backing to hang your flag
I love working with wood and old pallets…the possibilities are endless. But, I hate tearing them apart and usually request the help of my strong handy husband… this way it gets done a lot faster, with less slivers and less grunting!
Setp One: Take pallet apart.
Step Two: Line up pallets as straight as possible. Have someone help hold the pallets tight together… or hold them tight with your feet like I did.
Step Three: Line up your metal brackets, making sure that all the wood will be able to be screwed together with one bracket.
Step Four: Drill in your screws into the wood. (Don’t you love using a drill… it reminds me of my dad).
YAY half way done!!!!!
Step Five: Cut your stars using your Silhouette, or find star stickers. (I previously looked for star stickers but couldn’t find the correct size and it was actually super easy using my silhouette.)
Step six: PAINTING!!!
- I wanted to do the least amount of taping as possible, so I first painted the whole board off-white (it was actually a random bucket of white that I had on hand. Let it dry over night.
- Then I taped off the Blue box, lined up my stars and placed them into position…. (I layed them out first to get an idea of where I wanted them, after I got it right I peeled of the backing and placed them down). It was a pretty good guesstimate, but not exact by any means. Then I painted Blue and let it dry over night.
- In the morning I could hardly wait to paint the stripes. I measured how tall the board was and then divided it by how many stripes I needed (13), this helped me know how wide i needed each stripe to be. After that I marked the side of the board and I made sure that I would have 13 stripes and that they were equal in size. Then I taped every other stripe. REMEMBER, you tape the white lines so that the red will be painted and show through. Then paint Red.
The paint did bleed a little bit onto the white… But I LOVE it! It adds character. If you don’t, you can always go over it with a little bit of white… or you can use a sander and sand it off and even rough up your board a bit. I still might sand mine a bit, just to give it a more old vintage look. But I love it how it is for now!!!
Step Seven: Put a framing bracket, or framing wire on the back to hang it up. I would love to put our up on this wall right here… but since we are renting for now… I just can’t do it. I don’t want to put a large nail or screw where they might not want it… and I’m definitely talking this flag wherever we move to next.
Step Eight: decorate with all things American!!! and ENJOY!!!
Want the flag but don’t have time to make it? Buy it here.
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