Kids & Play

#73 · Flag post

Attach a sticky note flag to a chopstick and plant it victoriously in your desk, your lunch, or a freshly baked cake.

Sandcastles need flags. Cakes need flags. School dioramas need flags. A chopstick is the right size of pole for anything you can attach a small triangle of paper to.

How to do it

Cut a triangle or a swallowtail from paper or thin fabric.
Fold the short edge over the chopstick and glue it back onto itself rather than onto the wood, so the flag can turn freely.
Push the pole into whatever is being claimed.

Why it works

Gluing the flag to itself rather than to the pole makes a sleeve, which is how real flags are attached. It lets the flag rotate to face the wind instead of wrapping itself around the pole - the difference between a flag that flies and one that permanently looks like a used tissue.

Tips & warnings

Draw the design on both sides so it works whichever way it turns.
On a cake, wrap the buried part in foil so bare wood doesn't sit in the icing.
On a beach, push it deep. Sandcastle flags are lost to the wind constantly.