"Old Glory" Book

I was inspired by Christy over at “From Glitter to Gumdrops” by her adorable American flag book that she made!  I picked up a large book at my local thrift store for $1.00 and decided to give it a try and put my spin on it.

I knew I wanted to prime the entire book before beginning to paint it but I wanted to retain the yellowed pages so I covered them with paper and painters tape before spraying the book white.

 

Once this was dry I used acrylic paints to add the stars and stripes.  I used painter's tape to mark everything off but didn't press it down to firmly because I didn't want clean lines.  

I wanted to give this a little more dimension so I went back with some of my rubber stamps and inks that were slightly different in color from the stripes and added some filigree designs.  

I made sure to hold paper over the edges so I didn’t stamp on the other stripes.  I used a star rubber stamp and white acrylic paint to stamp stars on the blue background.

 

Once all of this was dry, I decided to add the words to God Bless America using a black permanent marker. 

Using a rag and some of my ink pads I rubbed beige and yellow inks over the entire piece to give it an aged look.  I finished it off by making a little tag using some free clip art (just googled 'Vintage patriotic postcards') and miscellaneous ephemera.  The handle was some twill tape I had that I stamped on using the same filigree stamps I used on the flag and of course since I have a billion old keys, I had to add one of those!

I wanted to get this finished for Memorial Day but now I'll have it ready for the Fourth of July!  I like this idea so much, I'm thinking of other things to paint on old books and make wall art -- got any suggestions??  Total cost for this project was $1.00 -- I had everything except the book!