I woke up really early on Wednesday morning & couldn't get back to sleep. As I layed in bed thinking about anything & everything, the thought occurred to me that we should make a basketball jersey out of duct tape! The idea seemed to come out of nowhere.
When Zeke woke up, I had to convince him to go along with my idea, which he did with some initial hesitation! We ran to the hardware store to pick up some red duct tape & black electrical tape for the trim. By the time we got home, we only had about 40 minutes to create the jersey.
I wanted to mimic the look of the local high school's jerseys, since the camp was being run by the high school basketball coaches & team (hence the red tape!).
Since we had limited time, I didn't snap pictures of the whole process, but hopefully enough that the idea can be duplicated.
First, I took an old jersey of my son's & traced it with a permanent marker onto a plastic garbage bag.
Next, I taped red duct tape completely covering the lines on both sides. (The garbage bag was thin enough that I could see the lines on the other side.)
Then, I re-traced the jersey onto the red tape, so I could cut it out. (There's a possibility the first step was pointless...)
The next steps were to cut the jersey out & tape the shoulders & side seams together on the outside & the inside.
{This picture was taken PRIOR to taping the shoulders & sides.}
The slow down began at this point. Since the original jersey was stretchy, I had to keep cutting down the neck (of the duct tape jersey) so it would fit over his head!
The final steps were to add black electrical tape as trim around the neck, arm holes, & bottom. Lastly, (I was really running behind at this point...) I added the letters & Zeke's basketball number to the front & just the number on the back.
Here's a very quick snapshot of the finished product:
{Front}
{Back}
It's not perfect, but it was a big hit at camp! The coaches & high schoolers thought it was pretty cool & Zeke won "Craziest Shirt" for the day!
I should mention that my seven-year-old son totally helped with this project. He gathered supplies, pulled the tape off for me, captured some of the pictures, & was my gopher for about 40 minutes! Plus, I made him try it on about 10 times in order to get the neck to fit! If we would have had more time, he would have done more of the work! Last year, we made a duct tape pouch that Velcros closed for him to keep his lunch money in, & he did most of the work on that.
This would be a great rainy day project. Let your children design & decorate their own duct tape shirts & accessories. Then, they could put on a fashion show & model the finished product! This duct tape comes in all different colors & patterns, such as orange, teal, & animal prints!
So, do you have any creative ideas for crazy shirt day? What about crazy sock day? (That was Thursday & my idea of taping feathers to the top & duck feet at the bottom of rainbow striped socks didn't end up working out!! I wish I would have had time to get some fake fur. I thought it would be funny to add it to some long socks to make it look like Zeke had really hairy legs!!)
Wendy
