I’m not a color person. And that was probably one of the dumbest things I’ve said in a while because you already know that.  ????   If you have been around here for a while, you know that I feel most comfortable with my woods and whites theme throughout our house.  I love color in other people’s homes, don’t get me wrong.  But, I just cannot live with it. We have both been in the mood to do a project lately.  Maybe it’s all of the talk about Deb’s new workshop we are planning on the property.   ????  Anyway, we wanted to keep our project simple and inexpensive.  And, of course, neutral.  Since Labor Day is coming up, we decided to make a neutral American Flag out of a pallet.  And I LOVE how it turned out.

Here is how we did it.

Neutral American Flag Made from a Pallet

Supplies:

13 – 36″ Boards  – for the stripes

3 – 18″ Boards – to attach the 13 boards together

(This will vary according to how large you make your flag.)

50 Wooden Stars

2 different colors of wood stain

Nail Gun

Sander

Wood Glue

Note:  Deb took apart 2 pallets to get enough good wood for the 13 stripes and the 3 boards that I used to attach them together.  You could use old fence slats or really anything for this.  We used some stain we already had on hand which happened to be Minwax Dark Walnut and Provincial.  And, we used a nail gun but they could easily be glued together, too.  We found this to be very easy and take little time.  Also.. you can hand stencil stars if you want, but I wanted mine to be raised for added texture.  So I bought wooden ones.

Directions:

Our flag happens to be roughly 36″ x 18″. The pallet boards were a little wider so Deb ended up ripping them down with a table saw.  We really weren’t too precise because we just wanted it to look rustic and weathered… and proportioned.

We laid them all out on our makeshift workbench and I taped off the square for the stars.  Since my wooden stars are 1″, I made my square (the blue part of the flag) 12 1/2 inches wide by 7 of the stripes.  Again… I’m not very precise because this is rustic.  ????  I stained that square with the walnut stain.

I used the provincial color to stain the “red stripes” and left the “white stripes” the natural pallet wood color.

I sanded each individual board really well when the stain was dry.  And, then flipped all of the boards over and attached them all together with the smaller 18″ boards using 3/4″ nails in the cordless nail gun Deb bought me.  (I think she truly bought it for herself.) It’s actually the first time I have used it and I LOVE IT!  I sanded the entire flag one more time really well…

And then I attached the wood colored stars using wood glue.  I eyeballed those too.  There are 5 rows of 6 and 4 rows of 5.  It was easiest to attach the rows of 6 and go back and fill the other stars between.

I love how my neutral American flag made from pallets turned out.  It will be something that I can display for July 4th and Memorial Day also.  And how cute will this be on our new front porch!