You're a Grand Old Flag (pt 1)

Good Day!  So I pinned this great sweatshirt craft idea from Oh Pish Posh over a year ago and always planned on making one of my own.  I even found a white sweatshirt in the clearence section of Michaels once.  Only to get it home and realize it had BRIDE written across the back in sparkly crystals...yeah NOT going to work.  So I continued to check the thrift stores and craft stores for a white sweatshirt and finally found one I thought would work.  I basically followed her instructions, which were pretty great.  The Freezer Paper stars were a fantastic idea, but sometimes mine didn't stick that well (and other times they did).  Not sure if there's a particular heat setting on your iron that works better, but if anyone figures that out let me know.

I started with the red stripes (I did the torso first and then the arms).  She said to use masking tape, but I used wide painter's tape and it worked great for me.  One strip for one stripe! After I had the stripes all taped I covered everything else that was going to end up blue with plastic bags to protect it.  I found Tulip fabric spray paint on sale so I decided to go ahead and use that. 

I had found a pin once for making your own spray paint (using a spray bottle and acrylic paint + water), which is much, much cheaper, so I thought I'd do that for the blue (more on that later).  Anyway, I used one whole bottle of the red Tulip paint for the shirt and it worked out great, but the end result turned out more pink than red.  So I ended up needing another bottle.
Red stripes all done :)

Time to move on to the blue & the stars.  For the blue I decided to try the 2 parts acrylic paint + 1 part water mix.  I decided where I wanted all my stars and ironed them on (after taping off all the red/white striped section).  I decided to do one side at a time because I was having some trouble with the stars sticking completely. 

So, I'm not sure if there wasn't enough water in my mix or my spray bottle was the wrong kind, but this definitely did not work.  Not to be deterred (I'd already mixed the paint and I purchased it specifically for this project), I decided to sponge it on.  WAY more time consuming, but it seemed to work well.  As you can probably see it was hard to get an even layer, so some sections had more paint then others, but in the end I decided I kind of like the mottled look. 

I'm still trying to decide if I should paint the inside of the hood as well.  I probably won't be wearing it with the hood up much, so you'll see the inside of the hood...  I guess I'll wait and see how much paint I have left.  A work in progress that will hopefully be finished by the 4th of July (yes, I realize it will be too hot to wear it) :)

**Update: You can check out the finished product here.

Flag (noun)

a piece of cloth, varying in size, shape, color, and design, usually attached at one edge to a staff or cord, and used as the symbol of a nation, state, or organization, as a means of signaling, etc.; ensign; standard; banner; pennant.