I looked for an image of a flag to vectorize so I could do what I wanted with it. I wasn't certain how the bubbles were created in the original, but I figured it had to be repeatable, since I couldn't create one in Photoshop from scratch without it looking plastic and fake. Eventually, I found this one I felt I could work with.

All you graphics-minded folks out there, I applaud you. I'd bet knowing what I was doing could have saved me the (brace yourselves...the laughter might kill you) MONTH I spent working on this trying to tweak it to get it right. This'll prolly end up looking like an hour's worth of work for you.