Parade Coutoure

I had intended on designing t-shirts for all of us to wear in the parade but I ran out of time. The designs had to be digitized, uploaded to CafePress and then ordered. They would never arrive on time. But, anyone who knows me knows that I don’t let ideas go that easily. It started when my friend said, “Just get matching green t-shirts.” Simple, ehh?

THE PROJECT
I had five days. I went to AC Moore during my lunch hour. They had t-shirts in OLA green. Perfect. But, lo! What is this? T-shirt spray paint? My mind started churning.

“That looks quick and easy. I just need to come up with a design, make a stencil and spray paint the t-shirts.”

Famous last words – “quick and easy”.


I bought four t-shirts, white and pink Tulip Cool Color Spray paint and Tulip 3D easy flow tube paint in black. For the next four days, I spent my lunch hour and evenings coming up with four designs. (Yes, four. I thought each t-shirt should be different.)

My parents were coming in from TN for the parade (so sweet). They would arrive the day before. I wrote mom earlier in the week and said I had a little project for us to do. She’s just like me. It was an insane idea but we’ve done crazier things. She was game.

If you would like a list of the products I used, instructions, tips, tricks and things I learned, click here for the long version. To make the story short, I was able to paint only two t-shirts because of a paint bottle malfunction. I don’t recommend buying the white paint but the pink worked fine. As you can see, they turned out pretty good.

As a back up (in case the spray paint didn’t work), mom and I made Cat in the Hat ties. I knew these would be fast and easy. I bought four sheets of stiff red felt. I sketched out the pattern on butcher paper. Mom cut them all out. We made them in two pieces so they would be dimensional. I glued them together with E6000 and used large safety pins as a fastener. I thought these would really pop against the green t-shirts.

So at the parade I wore one of the painted t-shirts and a Cat in the Hat hat. My Geek wore a green t-shirt with a Cat in the Hat tie. And there you have the appropriate coutoure for escorting SAM in his parade.