Paint Stick Button Flag Craft

I was browsing through some old magazines at my Mother-in-Law's house last week and came across a fun idea of making a flag out of paint sticks. I think it was in a Woman's World Magazine, but I'm not certain.  :-/  Since I hadn't made any crafts for the 4th yet with the kids, I knew we had to make it. It turned out so cute!

I attached a gold ribbon to it so it can hang on a hook.

First, I asked my local Wal-Mart paint department for 8 paint sticks. I expected them to not want to give them to me, but they just handed them over without a question at all.  :)  Have your children paint 4 of them red and 4 of them white.

To assemble the flag I placed them in red/white order upside down, and hot glued four craft sticks to the back. See picture below.

Then flip it over and use painters tape to outline the section of the flag that needs to be painted blue. Masking tape will probably work too.

Have your child paint the section blue and then immediately remove the painter's tape while the paint is still wet. Then let the paint dry completely.

Here is what it looked like after it was all painted and dry.

It looked pretty cool as it was, but we wanted to spice it up a bit so my boys glued medium and large sized buttons on the red and white stripes, and small white buttons in the blue section to act as stars.

To attach the gold ribbon, I just simply hot glued it to the back of the flag and tied a bow at the top.

And now we have a fun little decoration for Independance Day.  :)

Happy Crafting!!

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