ASCP Painted Flag

Hi there!  Well, I couldn't wait to show you the project my mom and I spent the afternoon working on.  Last week my mom attended an Annie Sloan Chalk Paint class and she loved it and learned so much.  I couldn't attend (my babysitter was at the class - ha!) but she promised to share all that she learned with me.  

For a while now I've wanted to paint some sort of flag wall art to hang in our upstairs office area (our "theme" is old schoolhouse).  I've had my eye on the painted American flag they sell at Pottery Barn but didn't want to pay the price they sell it for.  Then my mom had the idea of using the techniques she had learned to paint this flag and we decided to both make one.  

Let me tell you, I fell in love with this paint and all the possibilities.   Now I'm dreaming up everything I can use it on! 

Here's the tutorial if you are interested. 

These are our supplies.  You've probably heard of this paint being expensive, but it does go far and we ordered extra for some additional projects. In the end we calculated this project costing us $26 for each flag and it took us about 3 hours start to finish. 

- Cut piece of pine plywood 26"x48" (which we lightly sanded)

- Coco ASCP

- Emperor's Silk ASCP

- Napoleonic Blue ASCP

- Old White ASCP

- ASCP Clear Wax

- ASCP Dark Wax

- Lots of brushes

The first step is to paint your board with the paint color Coco.  We covered this pretty thoroughly since this is the color that would show through once we distressed the flag. 

Next we drew outlines with a pencil for the stripes and a rectangle for the stars.  Since there are 13 stripes, we measured ours 2" wide.  The rectangle dimensions are 14"x20".

Next we painted the stripes and the rectangle.  (The red paint is Emperor's Silk, the blue is Napoleonic Blue and the white is Old White.)  We didn't worry about the painting being perfect; in fact, we wanted it to look old and distressed so a lot of the Coco background shows through. 

Next came painting the stars.  This was a little more challenging and I don't have one great tip to share with you... I pretty much winged it by measuring and marking with a pencil a spot where each star would be painted. 

We used a "stencil" we made simply by printing out a star onto a piece of cardstock and cutting it out. 

Now came the fun part... the wax!  At this point we could see our flags had potential but my mom promised they were going to look great by the time we used the wax techniques she had learned.

We applied a coat of clear wax all over the flag in a circular motion and followed by buffing it with an old t-shirt. 

Next we distressed with sandpaper.  I only sanded the edges of my flag... the flag already looked very distressed since my painting was deliberately light in some areas. 

Next we used the dark wax to create that old antique look.  I was scared to apply this wax... look how dark it is! 

And when I first applied it I definitely had an "oh no" moment because this was a little more of a primitive look than I wanted  Then my mom remembered she had learned that to remove the dark wax, you can simply apply the clear wax again and buff it out. 

We were so excited then because the look it created was exactly perfect!  If you look closely at the picture above, you can see in the stripes area on the top of the flag that the white has a definite yellow tint... the lower half  has an antique look, but is still white, which is the look that was created by applying the clear wax again and buffing after the dark wax.  Pretty neat! 

We finished by rubbing Kraft paper all over the flag... this creates a sheen and gives the flag a smooth finish. 

I really loved working with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint.  I thought it was amazing how the layers of paint, the distressing, the waxing, all created such an "old" look.  I don't think anybody would ever  guess that this is just plywood!

You'll see my flag again once I figure out how to hang it!  This flag is actually pretty heavy, so I'll let my husband take over now.  (smile)

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!