With the English Premier League starting this month, I had to create a silly shirt to support West Ham United. With past crafting failures such as my Tie Dye American Flag Shirt and several others botched efforts, I felt I needed a guaranteed quality shirt. So yeah, why not create a stencil with cardboard and then spray paint an under shirt -- that sounds simple and clean!
Step one: Create Stencil
Creating the stencil is pretty easy. For this stencil I unfolded an empty case of Filmishmish, cut it in half, and drew an outline for the crest.
After I drew the outline for the stencil, the guts had to be removed. For this I used a utility knife and removed the bold lines bordering the crest
Step Two: Painting
Now that the stencil has been cut out and the shirt is designed, we’re one step closer to painting. Before painting, double-check that all of your tools are laid out:
- Spray Paint? – Check
- Tee Shirt? – Check
- Knife? (For any last minute stencil adjusting) – Check
- Stencil? – Check
- Whiskey? (and/or beer) - Check
Once everything is laid out, it’s time to paint! Make sure your stencil is centered and aligned to where you’d like the crest to sit then spray away!!
To get the colors the way I wanted, I laid the half case box in the center of the shirt, left all parts of the crest intact (crossing hammers and crest itself), removed the borders shown in the first picture then used blue paint to create the outline of the crest. Give the blue paint about 15 minutes to dry and then reapply the borders. Remove the crest but leave the crossed hammers in the middle of the crest. Once the borders are reapplied and the hammers are centered in the middle, spray (a ton of) red paint. Allow the paint another 15 – 20 minutes to dry. Once the red paint has dried, remove the hammers outline and reapply the crest. This will give you your base for the yellow hammers – spray away.
Step Three: Corrections
If any of you are familiar with the English Premier League you will know that the West Ham United colors are "claret" and blue -- not red and blue. In fact, the picture just above looks far too similar to the Arsenal Crest (remove the hammers and add a cannon) and that is just not acceptable. Once I realized the similarity of my shirt to that of the Arsenal crest, I had to improvise.
The only colors I had at my apartment were red (not claret!!), blue, black and gold. I knew that I had to darken the red to make it a maroonish color, so I reapplied the hammers outline and the borders, refilled my glass of whiskey and contemplated, “What to do, what to do!?” Although I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be, I decided to lightly spray some yellow and then some black in hopes of making the red darker. Somehow, it worked! Success!!
Step Four: Crafting Tips
Don’t worry about deviating from your original plan. I had originally planned on having only the crest on my shirt but with my confidence boosted after the correction, I decided to then add “COYI" (Come on you Irons!) to the shirt. In reality, this just adds to the tackiness so it’s not all that bad.
Step Five:
Wash your hands! Root for West Ham!
 | Post written by James Cramer, our "Beer Traffic Controller" and Kickball Team Captain, West Ham United fanatic who is obsessed with most things soccer related. Player of Indoor Soccer, Soccer Volley (soccer on a tennis court), Foot Golf (exactly what it sounds like) and even attempted foot bowling. |
Make some more summertime crafts with our Bruers. Check out our Pinterest board and these related blogposts:
- Jessica's Beer T-shirt Modifications
- Benjamin's Barrel Stave Bottle Openers
- Matt's Tie Dyed Tank Tops
- Victor's Reclaimed Pallet Herb Garden
- Cambria's DIY Floating Beer Bar
- Chris D's Upcycled Wood Barrel Planters
- Cesar's Upcycled Wine Barrel Cheese Board
- The Bruery Pinterest board: We're Going to Summer Camp
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