Getting Crafty - Ragnar Edition

This year's Ragnar McDowell Mountain series of trail runs is only two months away, so you guys know what that means - I've been restraining myself from over-planning for the past six months and can finally cut loose!  This year, we're running on our friend Matt Soto's team with our buddies Jake and his brother, conveniently also named Matt, Bryan and Jenny from Tucson, and their friend Whitney (we've never met Whitney, but she's a super fast runner, and if Bryan and Jenny vouch for her, that means she's good people).  This year, we've chosen the name "Breaking Rag," and as you might imagine, we're operating with a "Breaking Bad" theme.

Logo time!

Pretty cool, huh?

Thanks to Jesse at work for creating this.

We're working on a whole host of decoration ideas for the canopy/tents/accessories for the campsite, but I also wanted to put together a few fun other items, just to spice it up a bit.  I'm working on a sign for the site (probably next week's blog), but this weekend, I was able to accomplish putting together our costumes.  We already have team shirts in the making, but I figured it would be fun to buy a few hazmat suits, like the guys wear in the show.

For example.

Amazon came through with suits for around $10 each (I also checked the websites for HD, Lowe's, Grainger, Harbor Freight, and McMaster Carr, and Amazon was cheapest, at least for the yellow suits in our sizes), and thanks to Prime shipping, they arrived this weekend.  Time to make a template!

On Saturday night, while watching the Sun Devils play a very, very sad foosball game, I grabbed our finest-tipped box cutter (note to self:  I really need to buy an Exacto knife) and went to town on the logo, transferring it from regular printer paper to the re-used side of a FedEx envelope.

Since I was cutting this on the kitchen table,
Chris' recommendation to put cardboard underneath it

was rather wise.

In progress

Eventually, the template was all cut out and ready to try.  To the front yard!  The last time we were in HD, I picked up a few cans of 97 cent flat black spray paint, so I was ready to try this out.

The spray paint works!

Not too bad!

As you can see in the photo above, there's a little bit of bleed-through around the letters within the boxes, so when I actually put those on the jumpsuits, I'll tape them down a bit more to, hopefully, make them stand out in a sharper way.  

On to the actual jumpsuits!  Sadly, I don't have pictures of me trying my jumpsuit on.  I did so in the kitchen, in full view of all three dogs, but once I zipped it up and put the hood on, Harley started freaking out like, "OH GOD!  THE YELLOW PENGUIN MAN SWALLOWED MY MOM!  KILL IT!  KILL IT WITH FIRE!"  So, I had to quickly remove the suit or risk it being chewed off me by the ever-helpful three stooges that live in our house.

Anywhoo, the next morning, I set up my jumpsuit in the rocks outside to take care of business.  I weighed it down with water jugs and a (ahem) rehoused traffic cone, as well as a few rocks.

Thumb is ready to go!

Action shot!

Overall, things turned out okay, but a bit blurrier than I wanted.  I guess it kind of gives the jumpsuit a rough feel, and after spending a weekend out camping, the rest of it will certainly look that way.  I changed a few things between doing my jumpsuit and Chris', and I think his turned out a bit better.  Instead of spraying on the rocks, I moved the jumpsuit to the driveway, so the smooth cement would help keep things flat.  Also, on my jumpsuit, I put down the excess cardboard first, then taped the template over the cardboard, which left a small gap that paint somewhat bled into; I reversed this order on Chris', and it turned out a bit better.

Here's my finished product (my jumpsuit):

Not too shabby, overall.

Particularly for a total investment of around $15.

Later!

Amy