Independence Day Craft - Flower Flag!

Here is what I used for this project:

• Sola wood flowers from Oh You're Lovely (specifically, carnations!)
• Flattened cardboard box
• Red and blue craft acrylic paint
• Wood stars (you can also cut stars out of cardstock)
• White spray paint or craft paint (for the wood stars)
• Hot glue

This project is going to take a lot of flowers (depending on the size you decide to build your flag, of course!). I used 16 2.5" carnations for the blue section of the flag, 77 1.5" carnations dyed red and 73 raw carnations for the stripes.

To dye the flowers, I mixed each color paint with water (about a 50/50 ratio of paint to water) and then dipped each flower into the mixture. I then set the flowers on empty egg crates to dry overnight.

Using a serrated knife, I cut my flattened cardboard box so I only had one side to work on. Then I grabbed my hot glue gun and started in the top left corner with the blue carnations! In retrospect, I probably should have left some room on the left side of the cardboard as I would have liked to add another column to the left of the blue.

I completed the blue section and then moved onto the stripes. The USA flag has a lot of subtle details and I wanted to make sure the piece was as close in design as I could get it so I started with a red stripe as the first, then white and kept alternating until I had 13 stripes!

I used my serrated knife again to cut the extra cardboard off and painted my wood stars white. When they were dry, I added a dab of hot glue to the back and gently pressed each one (50 total) into the blue section.

This final project measures 16" tall x 22" wide.

And there you have it! My floral take on the USA flag!