What's More 'Murican Than Old Glory

Surprise - I didn't die! I've just been on a blogging hiatus. Not necessarily by choice, just by life priority. I got a new job, blah blah, moved my family to a new city, blah blah. I don't want to get all technical on you because it involves highly complex formulas, but basically: (move + new job + 2 kids under 3 years old) = 0 free time. Because math.

I did want to share this little diddy because America's birthday is coming up, and that was half of my inspiration for the project. And, with our five year anniversary coming up in a few weeks, I think it's pretty obvious I was excited that the gift theme for that particular year is wood. If we could just make that the theme every year, I'd be the best. anniversary. gift giver. ever.

So without further ado, happy (early) anniversary sweetheart, with a side of freedom.

Here was my inspiration for what would become 12 square feet of, well wood and paint, but more importantly...pure, unadulterated independence.

  

Don't exactly remember where I saw it, but I saved it to my phone photos so that I would eventually get around to making it.

This might be a good time to point out that I'm supper OCD about planning designs for things I make. It's less artistry and more math - less free hand and more angles, center points and incremental measurements. I actually looked up official measurement ratios for the American flag. Yeah...Needless to say, it was inexplicably important to me to make the version that included 50 stars. I'm weird like that.

Without going into the exact detail, because that would take 2,000 more words than I want to type - and more OCD-crazy than I'm willing to openly admit to - used 2.25" as my stripe width and measured everything from that.

The table saw came in handy for cutting the stripes. Once I had them all organized in a dry fit test run, I flipped them over, clamped 'em together and screwed three 1" boards onto the back - with screws going through into each stripe.

For the stars, again - don't judge, I made a pattern with Photoshop to use as a guide. Then I burned each star into the wood using my woodburning tool. I can hear you silently judging me. Shut it.

Before painting, I rubbed candle wax across the entire surface liberally, so that the distressing step would be MUCH easier. 

Then I used a wire brush to distress the whole thing, which is a fairly new practice I've adopted. Sandpaper was too predictable and the results to "rehearsed." The wire brush is a little more rando-matic.

I've got a few more projects in the queue to show you guys, so hopefully things will start to settle down and I'll have a little more time/motivation to share them here. That's the dream, anyway.