Materials Needed to Make American Flag Collage
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- Old Magazines that You Don’t Mind Cutting Up
- Kid Scissors
or Adults Scissors (depending on the age) - Poster Board
- Blue Stock Paper or Blue Construction Paper
- Glue Sticks
- Star Paper Punch
- White Paper 18″ Long
or 
(depending on the age)
or 
How to Make American Flag Collage
First, look through some old magazines and cut out any picture that has red, white or blue. This might take some time, so it could be a project you do in bits for a week leading up to the Fourth. I definitely helped cut out images.
This next part is up to mommy, unless you have older kids. Cut out a piece of tag board measuring 18″ x 13″. Next, draw one inch thick stripes on the tag board. Out of blue construction or stock paper, cut out a square that measured 8″ x 7″. Also, cut out a piece of white paper measuring 18″ x 6″. The blue paper is just sitting on top here. Don’t glue it down yet. While I said this was up to mommy, I do believe kids can learn and help measure, draw lines and cut, so let’s just call it a group effort.
The next step is to start making the collage. Fill the blue square with all the blue images you cut from the magazines. Trim the edges to keep it a nice square.
Next, glue all of your red images down on the tag board on the space drawn out for the red stripes. The images will flow over the edges, and that is OK. Above gives a good idea of what to expect it to look like at this stage. The white stripes will end up covering the overspill of red.
You will then create the white collage on the 18″ x 6″ paper. Once your images are all glued down, cut this piece of paper into six strips 18″ x 1″ long. These strips will be glued down between the red stripes on the tag board.
The final step is the stars. I had this little star punch, so we just punched out 50 white stars to glue down to the blue collage square. However, another easy solution is to buy those shiny star stickers. Glue the blue square onto the tag board flag, and you are done. It looks like a real piece of art.
Want More Fourth of July Craft Ideas?
American Flag Crêpe Paper Craft
This is such a cool project
I was really excited about the results. It was so easy too. Thanks.
This is a really cool collage. I love the way it looks.
Thank you. Crazy that it can be done by 3 & 4 year olds.
That looks great! Awesome idea–have to try this sometime with the union flag 🙂
I would love to see it. I lived in England for a year, and I just love the Union Jack. I remember teaching about flags when I was in the classroom, and we had fun with transparencies layering the three flags together to great the Union flag. Thanks for commenting.
Great Flag Idea and Love that the kids are helping 🙂
JoAnn
Thank you. It was fun.
I love anything with an American flag but I’ve never seen it done this way. Great idea!
There’s something great about that image, isn’t there. Thank you.
I LOVE this project!!! Great job. I also love that you got the kids involved. Definitely pinning this.
I hope you’ll do it sometime.
I so LOVE this and think my toddler would have so much fun helping! Thanks so much for sharing. Would love if you’d share on my weekly linky party! I am in the process of setting up a Red, White and Blue party for Memorial Day and July 4th too! I pinned this as well.
http://teaganstravels.blogspot.com/2012/04/destination-inspiration-linky-party-11.html
Blessings, Michelle
I linked up, but I had a hard time grabbing your button.
Stars and stripes seems to be the topic of the day – I just finished a post about a T-shirt with a stars-and-stripesy toadstool that you might like for your kids. It’s great to have children (and if they help with your crafts – even better =)
I saw that. Really cute design.
Very fun! I like patriotic projects like this and I like repurposing things. This looks like my style of project!
I hope you get to do this project. Your kids would enjoy it, I’m sure. Striving to be a Proverbs 31 woman myself! Love your heart.
I click over to your blog from Raising Memories. Your message really resonated with me. I’ve had a family blog for almost 4 years and just decided to start a mom blog. I’ve contemplated starting one for over a year and a BIG reason was to help me focus more on my kids and creating memories with them. I know that there are some people that don’t understand my reasoning….how could blogging help me re-arrange my priorities. But, it does. I have a huge list of activities and projects to do with them and blog about. I’m excited about finding your blog! And I love, love the flag project. Very cool.
I’m so glad you found me…and visa versa. You seem to have a really good blog going. I started following you. I enjoyed the concept behind your “right now” post. Is that going to be an on-going thing? Cool concept. Thanks for taking the time to comment. It is amazing how blogging, when kept in check (which is a balance I TRY to protect), can totally refocus you.
Mama Jodi, thank you so much for linking this up on my Destination: Inspiration party! I wanted to let you know I featured this project this week at http://teaganstravels.blogspot.com/2012/04/linky-party-features.html!
Today it is cold and rainy so we are having a friend over to help us recreate this! So exciting and I know the girls will love making this. Our plan is to take the finished project with cookies to our local VET association on Memorial Day weekend.
Thanks so much for the inspiration and hope you will be a regular visitor. I love your blog and will definitely be back often!
Michelle @ Teagan’s Travels
Wow – that’s a great idea. We live very close to a Veterans hospital, and I’m sure we could find someone to visit and bless them with this flag as they’ve blessed us with their service. Thank you for your inspiration. I grabbed your button. Thank you so much for the feature.
My 3 1/2 year old daughter and I just did this project today for Memorial Day. It turned out to be so cool! I love it! I’m going to pick up some clear contact paper and adhere it to the front and back so I can keep this as a patriotic decoration forever. Also, although most of it could be accomplished by my little one, it did take a very long time, so I helped her through all the steps. We did it together and it was fun and turned out GREAT! 🙂 Thanks for the post.
I’m so glad you did it. It is a great idea to laminate it, and I still have mine that we want to take to a nearby Veterans hospital. I think I should laminate it before we take it there. I also loved the results, so I’m glad you were happy with the outcome. I absolutely love to hear about when someone actually does one of my projects. It’s a huge compliment and is really encouraging. Thanks for that.
Hi Jodi, I’m new here, and wanted to say how much I love this flag project! And I’m featuring it today on my blog. Click through to check it out, http://www.myclevernest.com.
<3 Alyssa
Hey–Your collage is awsome! My class at the summer program is going to love this project.
Thank you!
-Patricia
Thanks so much. I hope you have a lot of fun with it.