During our drive from Massachusetts to Virginia in August to visit my wife Kristie's family, we stopped at kind of a lot of Targets. (Don't you think that makes sense as a road trip stop?) We would use the restroom and refresh our stock of snacks, and poke around the baby section whenever we felt like stretching our legs.
It was in one of those Targets that I saw a sweet baby sweatshirt. It was burnt orange and had little badger faces on it and I really liked it. We didn't buy it, but the thought of it stuck around.
Somehow over the next few days, in my hormone-soaked brain, I became convinced that it had actually been a yellow sweatshirt with raccoon faces, and I wanted it even more. Once we got back to Mass, I dragged Katy through our local Target searching frantically for this fever-dream yellow raccoon sweatshirt, and cursing myself for not having bought it in the moment. Eventually (sitting on the floor in the bath decor aisle because #pregnant) I realized while scrolling through the Target website on my phone the fiction I'd created, and that the yellow sweatshirt with raccoon faces simply did not exist.
Well, only one way to fix that.
I thought back to the DIY-ish stamped sweatshirts that my brother and sister and I had worn when we were little (see below! Little Max omg!) that I always thought our mother had made, but it turns out she'd bought in Vermont.
(Maybe I need more echinacea or something in my diet. Fish oil? Does that help with memories?)
Anyway, I decided to make the imaginary sweatshirt myself. And this is how.
I bought:
- A plain yellow sweatshirt
- Black soft fabric paint
- A little sponge roller
- A raccoon stamp (I briefly considered carving my own with this kit which I've used before and love, but decided to save my energy for something else...like napping)
It feels almost silly to write out a step-by-step list for a tutorial that's so simple, but here it is:
Wash and dry the sweatshirt.
Use the sponge roller to apply an even layer of paint to the stamp.
Press the stamp firmly onto the fabric, paint side down, before carefully lifting up.
Reapply paint before adding the next face, and stamp to your heart's content. Allow the front to dry, and stamp the back of the sweatshirt and sleeves too.
I decided to wing it with the pattern. An alternative option would be to tape out a grid to help guide the stamp placement.
I love this funny face. (I liked this stamp too, but thought the pointy teeth were a little scary.) And I like how the sweatshirt turned out – just as I had imagined.
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