Wood American Flag

I am sure that you all have seen the Pottery Barn wood American flag.  I've had the catalog page in my inspiration binder for a few years now. 

Love it!  Anyway since it was so hot over the weekend I needed something to keep me busy inside.  I thought making a PB flag knockoff to hang outside for the 4th of July would be perfect. 

For the stripes I had intended to buy the strips of wood lattice is made of, then I saw that Lowe's had their wood yard sticks marked down to 67 cents. I was going to get 13 of those and be done.  Then I saw the furring strips for only 95 cents each and I could get 3 cuts out of each one and be able to use the last strip as the support.  I bought 5 of them.

Since this was suppose to be an inside project I had planned on using a hand saw to make my cuts but Eric was nice enough to do the cuts for me.  We cut 13 strips 30" long.

Since this was suppose to be an inside project I was just going to use craft paint to paint the stripes, but realized spray paint would be so much quicker and easier.

Now finally we are back inside after the paint dried.  Phew it was hot out there.
Eric was going to use tiny screws to hold the stripes into the support boards but soon realized they would crack the boards.  So good ol hammer and nails.

Level the boards against a wall before you nail in the back supports, that way you only have to cut one side even.

Now that the stripes were attached it was time to paint the navy and stars.  The width of the navy was easy because you could count the stripes, but the length took a little time to figure out.  At least it did for me.  I guesstimated 13" based on the scale of my small flag model.  Eric whipped out some real math and calculated 13.6".  So if you are making a flag with 30" long stripes make your navy 13.6" long.  Easy.

Now time for the stars.  I couldn't decide if I wanted the correct uniform stars or more of a random pattern.  I chalked off a grid for the tradtional stars but my star stencil from Hobby Lobby wouldn't work for that.  The smallest star was too small and the next to smallest was too big.  Random pattern it is.

After the paint dried Eric attached 2 eye hooks and chain.  I decided not to distress my flag so it isn't as cool as Pottery Barn's, but I didn't seal the paint so hopefully it will eventually distress itself. 

Now we are ready for the 4th of July!

Pottery Barn $129.  Vanessa Barn $11.