Cooler Painting

Back home at last! We returned home from the beach around noon yesterday after a very successful weekend! A big custom with these fraternity weekends is to paint coolers themed around the weekend or event (formals, initiation, for your littles if you're in a sorority) so that you can bring your drinks, snacks and food easily with you! They are EXTREMELY difficult to paint. Whoever made this custom of painting acrylic paint on plastic was insane. Thanks to modern technology and the aid of several girlfriends who have done this in the past, my process was relatively easy. It started out looking like this:

Standard Igloo $18.88 cooler from WalMart

Then progressed:

And again:

And again:

And again: (it's like a butterfly)

This was the finalized top!! I was SO PROUD! Shane and I often call ourselves "Team Maryland" so when I started painting my cooler I knew I was gonna take the Maryland to an extreme! What's more Maryland-y than Old Bay Seasoning??

This was my madras front. I was most proud of this side. I'd never seen anything like this cooler so I was really excited to be very different from the norms!

This was one of my small sides! For this side, paint pens were key!

This was the back, it was a MapQuest inspired map to where we were heading! 

So now that I have one cooler under my belt, I'm tempted to make a list of things I wish I knew. Anyone have any tips to add? What you painted coolers for?

xxKatie

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