I have always had such fun making things for Maris over the years. I started smocking her little baby gowns just after she arrived. Then I created little dresses out of vintage pillowcases, created jewelry, headbands, purses, decorated shoes...I love that she has been so accepting of my wearable art. But you don't get to do much of that for little boys. So, this year for Christmas I was excited to finally make something for Jack to wear.

On days of swim meets, the swimmers have to dress up to go to school. Jack didn't have a lot of ties, so I decided to try my hand at personalizing one for him. Because I had no idea if this would work, I invested in a very inexpensive tie from Wal-Mart. The perfect shade of Smoky Mountain blue.

 I bought a very fine tipped paint pen from Michaels and coupled that with my fine-tipped Sharpie

I didn't know if either would bleed, so I tested it on the back, under the hem. no bleeding! I sketched the mustang mascot very lightly on the tie with a sharpie--yea, big deep breath anytime you have to sketch anything with a sharpie. Then I filled it in with the silver metallic pen. To add the blue mane, I used a little blue acrylic paint. After I was finished, I went back and added some heavier black outlines.

I was a little nervous to see his reaction, but he loved it! He will wear it tomorrow for the first time and I am pretty sure he will be the only one rocking a SMHS tie!