A Manly Rainbow...

Tomorrow is 'Rainbow Day' at preschool - typically on Color Days you wear the color.   This month's color is 'rainbow' -  yes he could have chosen his favorite color - or he could have worn several different colored clothing (although honestly, I am pretty sure I fail to collect the whole rainbow in an Ace fitting wardrobe)  so I went to the masses for suggestions.   My friend Rachel had the idea that I let him color on a shirt with markers.   There were other good suggestions, all of them involving the need to go to the store for supplies.  I had no desire to go shopping today.   So I decided to 'make it work' and went on the hunt.

First, I had to find a shirt that he could color on that was light in color and didn't have anything else on it.   That was pretty much impossible.  So next I went on the hunt and found a shirt that he had long since outgrown and flipped it over and created a canvas for him to draw on.    Next up was trying to figure out how to keep the shirt with the piece of cardstock I had put in it from sliding around too much.  So I decided some painters tape on their floor mural (butcher paper from the day before they colored on) would do just fine.  

I handed Ace the sharpies and gave him the instructions.   He was very excited (after he had scolded me for making the square in the first place "You don't draw on clothes, mom!") and decided he wanted to write his name.   Mae decided she wanted to help too - which we allowed with the cap on!   Ace was very patient with her poking in her artistic imagined drawings in between his own and she was happy with her results so it was good fun  had by all.   Eventually Ace deemed his project complete and we moved into the next round.

I grabbed the pinking shears and found a plain long sleeve shirt that we had in a size that fit.   Pinned it and sewed it in place.    However, it was a big enough square that it needed some extra pinning down.  So I took the same zig zag setting and made some various zig zags throughout the shirt in an artsy fashion.

Wala!  Now the boy has a creative and manly rainbow-ish shirt to wear for Rainbow Day.   :)   He was pretty excited by this project and aside for the time it took to hunt down what I was going to use the whole thing took about 20 minutes.   Time well spent.  It's far from perfect and I think if I did it again I probably wouldn't use the pinking shears as it kind of makes a 'ruffle' effect that isn't so manly. ;-)  But overall for wearable art it's not too bad.   I used sharpies so for the most part it should even hold up somewhat in the wash.