Union Jack

Union Jack

Inspired by the decoration in the Antique shop I wanted to make my own Union Jack.

Antique shop window

Originally I was going to buy the materials and sew them together, but I managed to find a Union Jack tea towel, so I bought that instead and decided to age it. This way would be a lot quicker and cheaper, which I think is the point to prop making, to be cost and time effective.

To age it I first of all applied bleach all over, which faded the colour a little, but did leave some really good marks on it. What really faded the colour was sandpaper, which again I had to do all over. The bottom picture shows half the flag as I bough it, and the right side is after the effects of bleach and sandpaper. I chose bleach and sandpaper, because I have used them before for ageing, and they were what I had to hand. I didn't want to go for the obvious tea bags, because I didn't want the smell!

And here's the finished flag!

I thought of how to present this with my props and came up with the idea of a basket to hold all my polystyrene foods, and this could line that basket. So the next stage was to locate a wicker basket, age that and see what it looks like altogether.