DIY Wood Flag For Your Summer and 4th of July Decor

DIY Wood Flag For Your Summer Decor

I am not sure what it is about this time of year that has me running around like a crazy lady but that is what I have been doing lately. Don’t worry though, I still found time to make this American flag inspired decor for my front porch.

I will start by saying this is NOT what I thought it was going to look like. I had every intention of making something similar to this instead. In my normal fashion, I rushed it and didn’t measure anything. My first attempt looked pretty pathetic. I either had to trash it or start over. So, I started over and somehow this is what I came up with on a whim.

The only time I really go all out and decorate for any season is Christmas. This is my first 4th of July/summer craft…ever.

Items needed for your DIY Wood Flag:

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Wood planks or any other kind of flat surface
Wood glue, screws or nail gun
Paint-I went with the traditional red, white and blue colors but any colors will do.
Wax (optional)
Painters tape and lots of it

Years ago I purchased pine planks from Lowes (or Home Depot-I forget what store I was hanging out in at the time). They come in different lengths and I purchased the shorter 32″ length panels. I had originally purchased them to plank my half bathroom ceiling at our old house.

Yep, never got around to what could have been that disastrous project so these planks moved with us to the new house. They worked out perfectly for this project.

For my project, I used 5 planks but you can make this as big or as little as your little heart desires. I flipped over my boards and used some scrap wood to lay vertically down the boards. I used my nail gun to secure my scraps to the planks.

Wood glue would work as well as screws. Just make sure your nails/screws aren’t longer than your scrap wood and planks when combined together or you might split the planks and/or have a nail sticking out of the front of your piece. Ask me how I know this Whoopsie.

Since I messed up the first go around, I was forced to paint my boards all white. I then measured out a 10×9 inch box first where the “stars” would go. When I originally started this project those smaller boxes inside the 10×9 box were going to be something else. Making smaller boxes is optional but it did end up helping with my final decision. I then taped off each board directly in half and painted my red stripes.

I didn’t have a star stencil or stamp to work with so I decided to get creative for the stars. At the last second, I decided I wanted to do a buffalo check feature. While it is not hard to do it did require lots of painters tape and drying time. If you have hung out with me for a while now you should hopefully remember the floor I painted in my mudroom. I copied my exact procedure for this little project.

I started off with painting two strips of a light blue color vertically. (This is where those little boxes I made came in handy.) I added a few drops of my navy paint to some of my white paint to get this light blue color.

Once the light blue color was dry I taped off two strips horizontally and painted those strips a darker blue color (I just added more navy paint to my light blue color).

Again, let everything dry. And then I painted plain navy to every other square on my horizontal strips.

A few touch ups were needed once all the tape was removed and I just used a small craft brush to fix any mistakes. Once everything was dry, I used a white wax to seal my paint to give my boards more of a weathered look. You can also use a dark or clear wax or even a poly to seal your board.

If you want to hang your piece you can add some D rings to the back as well but I like to lean things…I’m a leaner. Minus the fact that I had to do this project twice it was a fun and easy project to tackle and the littlest one had fun helping as well!

If you want to save this for later, you can pin it here: