Here’s the first batch of the flags we made being put out on George Derby Centre’s lawn. There’s still time to make your pledge. Text FLAG to 45678 to donate $5 and pledge a flag in honour of a veteran.
Media coverage:
For over 25 years, George Derby Centre in Burnaby, BC, has been providing nursing and medical care to their veteran-residents from across British Columbia. This year, the Centre is taking pledges to promote the awareness and honour the heroes amongst us for their extraordinary sacrifices.
To pledge a flag with a $5 donation, please text FLAG to 45678 from your mobile phone.
For every $5 donation they receive in pledges, a Canada flag will be placed on their lawn in honour of a veteran. These custom printed “George Derby Centre” Canada flags are weather-proof, produced by The Flag Shop Vancouver specifically for this purpose, and we are honored to support their “Pledge a Flag” awareness campaign.
Help them fill their lawn by November 11th, 2013!
All proceeds will go toward improving the lives of these unsung heroes at the George Derby Centre.
For more information about George Derby Centre or other ways to donate, please visit www.georgederbycentre.ca or call 604.527.4465.
Our flags have gone to some hard to reach places before, but the South Pole beats the previous winner of Mt. Kilimanjaro for most remote!
The Flag Shop Toronto made the digitally printed 3′ x 5′ Yahoo! Canada flag which was taken by Dr. Heather Ross and the Test Your Limits Team to the South Pole to raise awareness for heart failure research, cardiac transplantation and heart health.
Congratulations on your successful journey!
Before Christmas, we had a request come in for a family crest flag. The only problem was that the reference for the crest was a physical three-dimensional plaque! Using that as a guide, we put together the art file using heraldic elements and then hand-drew the rest as needed.
The end result? See for yourself:
Art services are just another part of our dedication to customer satisfaction!
When you’re a guest in another country, you usually want to respect their customs while not forgetting your own. Ron McCall came to us to design an antenna flag for motorcycle enthusiasts from Canada who ride in the US and want to respect both their host and home countries.
We decided to create a new flag design just for them. Our existing combo US/Canada flag design gives equal space to both flags, while in the new one the Canadian flag takes up the top right quarter of the US flag to give the US flag respectful prominence. The 5″x8″ polyknit flag uses strong hook-and-loop fasteners to keep it attached to the antenna of a motorcycle going highway speeds.
Ron was quite pleased with the results and is now proudly flying the new hybrid flag whenever he heads south for a ride.
Here’s the flag in action:
We liked it so much, we decided to print more to add to our stock! You can buy the USA/Canadian combo antenna flag here.
We are excited to show off the flag we have donated to the One Epic Journey team who are doing the 2012 Ride to Conquer Cancer that goes from Vancouver to Seattle in June. Team captain Bill deGroot got some of the staff to pose with the flag before it left the building.
One Epic Journey will be carrying the flag across the start and finish lines of the event as well as flying it at their campsite between legs. They have just passed the $20k mark in fundraising, and their ultimate goal is $25k which I am sure they will reach. We wish them the best of luck on the ride!
Have you ever wondered how we make our beautiful applique Canadian flags? No? Well, too bad, you’re going to find out anyway.
This is a little late for Canada Day, but it’s still cool. This video from The Express features some of our long-time seamstresses as they measure, cut, and sew a Canadian flag as well as Susan talking about the care and quality control that goes into making the flags. The video starts right at our segment, but definitely watch the entire thing to find out about other Canadian souvenirs.
Here’s something to raise your spirits after last night’s… well, let’s not even talk about it.
Friday night, after everyone had left for the day, Susan got a request for some extra-large Canucks flags from The Fairmont Hotel Vancouver. We carry a fair number of Canucks flags (well, usually… we’re a little low at the moment), but not in 6’x12′. The hotel forwarded the email correspondence showing they had permission to have extra large Canuck flags made – a rarity, since most people love to tell us they have permission, but when pressed, can’t prove it. Susan double-checked with the Canucks, and after receiving an email confirmation, put the paperwork together on Saturday. Monday morning the order went into production, and a mere 26 hours later, we have this beautiful 6′ x 12′ Canuck flags, which will be up and flying soon along with two other 4.5’x9′ flags.
The Flag Shop has 13 franchises across Canada. Our New Brunswick store has this story to share about one of their biggest jobs.
Acadian flags are a pretty standard order in the New Brunswick Flag Shop – the second best seller behind Canadian flags, in fact, but orders for a 30 foot by 60 foot flag are anything but standard. When Saint-Louis-de-Kent decided to mark the 125th anniversary of the designing and adoption of the Acadian flag by ordering an impressively large Acadian flag, The Flag Shop and its manager Belinda Gagne had quite the challenge.
The challenge was two-fold – one, they had to make an unprecedentedly large flag, and two, they had to install an unprecedentedly large flag pole. The large Acadian flag – which has the same design as the French flag but with a gold star on the hoist side – was sewn together from many different panels and weighs over 60 pounds by itself. The flagpole needed to extend 130 feet in the air and have a great deal of concrete poured to support the weight of the seven ton shaft. It took several weeks to get the pole installed in time for the inaugural flag raising on November 8, 2009 which was greeted with much ceremony including a two weeks of festivities in the run up to the flag raising.
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The large flag is put away every winter to protect it from the harsh weather and brought out again in the spring. It requires about fifteen people to keep the flag off of the ground while it is being raised. The Flag Shop New Brunswick has since made a second flag to reduce the amount of wear – a common concern with larger flags.
See some of the other work our New Brunswick store has done.
Maple Leaf Tartan
Did you know that Canada has its own official Tartan? In addition to icons such as the maple leaf and the beaver, the Maple Leaf Tartan joined the list of national symbols in March of this year. The tartan, designed in 1964 by David Weiser, weaves together green, gold, red, and brown to symbolize the shifting colors of the maple leaf through the seasons. In addition, each province and territory (except for Nunavut) has its own official tartan and there are many other regional tartans recognized across Canada.
Though it’s been celebrated province-by-province since the 1980s, tomorrow is Canada’s first official Tartan Day since the government only officially recognized it as a federal holiday in October 2010. Many Scottish cultural associations celebrate with different events on this day or on the following weekend.
We don’t yet have the Maple Leaf Tartan flags, but our tartan flag supplier is hard at work on the design. Meanwhile, you can see his other work in our tartan flags section.
Happy Tartan Day!