I love America

I'm patriotic.  I love my country.  In my living room, you can see a subtle theme of God Bless America with my wood planked USA and the picture hanging over my mantle.  So on Tuesday of last week, when Ana from Knock-Off Wood posted these plans, I knew I had to make it.  As usual, the original came from Pottery Barn.  Yep, I definitely like their style, just not their price!

Image Courtesy of Pottery Barn

Ana's plans call for scrap wood.  Slight problem...I didn't have enough scrap wood to make this.  I wasn't even close.  So we went dumpster diving to get it all.

We cut all of the various wood pieces to size.  We did have to adapt a bit due to the wood from the crates not measuring exactly the same as wood from big blue or big orange would.  We laid all of the wood out on our sheet of plywood and made a few adjustments until we had our square.

I used our sander with 60 grit paper and sanded each piece individually until my arm almost fell off.  I was thrilled with how good the wood looked after some serious sanding!

I used the Minwax Water Based Wood Stain tinted in china red and midnight blue, along with the white oak to stain my boards.  I mixed the midnight blue with the white oak until I came up with a light blue color I liked and used that.  If you do this, make sure you mix enough for 2 coats!  I didn't come up with a gray color, I just stained the white boards with quite a few coats, and then left the ones that were supposed to be gray with only two coats of the white stain.

I found stars at Jo-Ann's and traced them onto my boards with a thin paint brush and my white stain, and then painted inside the lines.

I love it.  These pictures were taken after I put it all together.

Chris helped me glue all of the boards down, trying really hard to keep our square.  We also nailed in the tiny 1 inch nails for an added detail.  Ready to see her in all her beauty?!

Oh...you'd like to see a few image from the side?  Okay!

Back to the front...

And to be fair, we have to add in the other side.

I still have to add the wall hangers on the back, but this one might be a gift, so I couldn't just yet.

Just in time for the 4th too.  God Bless America!!  Do you love her as much as I do?!  I'm linking to these fun parties...go check them out!

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!!