Wooden Stick Flag and Stars

Sandi/Poor But Proud
Gold Post Medal for All Time! 969 Posts

I have wanted to make one of these using paint stir sticks for a while now. I have always known that paint stirrers are so versatile. I just needed the sticks and the paint and the time. I hope you like it.

Total Time: 4 hours

Yield: 1 Set

Supplies:

7 stir sticks
23 Popsicle sticks
1 oz navy blue paint
1 oz tan paint
1 oz burgundy paint
hot glue gun and 2 sticks
6 in scrap ribbon and fabric
3 foam and artists brushes

Steps:

I didn't want a paint mess to clean, so I covered my cutting board with cellophane. Planning out the sticks. I chose to alternate the "hand space" (little indentation you usually hold the stick with). Then I got to work.

Wooden Stick Flag and Stars - covered workspace

I determined the size of the blue, and drew it on three of the 7 sticks. The painting was where I made some "holiday" as the painters call them, but I will get to that later. I painted the red paint first. It began to dry in 5 minutes, and with a second coat on, I got the "weathered" look I wanted. I even remembered to paint the edge of the stick that would be the bottom one, and most of the top red one, too, leaving room for the blue paint.

Wooden Stick Flag and Stars- sticks laid out with grip alternating, blue field marked and then the appropriate sticks painted red

The red paint was a Dollar Tree wonder. So was the blue. But I will never get the light brown and cream larger bottles. It has not only so much water it took almost an hour to dry for each coat, but it warped the sticks. Mistake number two, but to be fair, I had never bought any of these paints. Live and learn.

Wooden Stick Flag and Stars - back side of sticks

With the tan finally dry, I painted the blue square. It dried as fast as the other one. I walked away from the project for the day so everything would be easier to work with the next day.

Wooden Stick Flag and Stars - painting the blue area

Wooden Stick Flag and Stars - allowing to dry

Wooden Stick Flag and Stars - all colors applied with 2 coats and allowed to dry

If the 2 had not warped, the job of gluing them together would have been so easy. But it wasn't. So, I ended up needing heavy cans of meat and mini craft clamps to do the job. I used 8 Popsicle sticks to glue the flag together, 4 on top and bottom. But I made another mistake there, too. I forgot that the sticks would show through that indentation and then I would have to paint them. That led to a whole other problem of smudging red paint onto the tan sticks.

Wooden Stick Flag and Stars - clamps and cans holding down sticks while the glue dried

Wooden Stick Flag and Stars - closeup of can and clamps

So essentially the flag was done. But these are the mistakes you can avoid. Just because I didn't have to paint the edges of the sticks, didn't mean I shouldn't have painted the little indentation. Also I forgot to paint the top of the blue section. Going back with the blue was easy. The other, not so much. I got some red on the tan sticks and because of that, I had to remix some of the paint to fix it.

Wooden Stick Flag and Stars - need to touch up areas that were not painted on the edges

The color was too dark, so I "faked" some rustic streaks on them so it looked like it was supposed to be there. Again, live and learn.
The single star was made from some tan, blue, and red ribbon. I glued it stiff, cut out the star and glued it on after I fixed all the mistakes on the tan and burgundy sticks. I put a small hanger on it and called it good.

Wooden Stick Flag and Stars - star template on ribbon

Wooden Stick Flag and Stars - ribbon glued to the wooden star

Wooden Stick Flag and Stars - closeup of flag

I have never made the Popsicle stick stars before, but they are super simple. I even got a little "how to" off the internet and made three. Since I never wanted to mix any more of the watery paint, I just left them clear as they were pretty close to tan. I painted the others red and blue and glued them together. N-JOY!!