River the Raccoon Mardi Gras Tees

It started as a simple text.....

My good friend and fellow running buddy, Leslie Albritton, had sent me this message one day out of the blue. I had seen her hysterical posts and photos of her pet raccoon and knew as soon as I read her text that he needed to be on one of our shirts. 

 I was leaving the next day to go on an art retreat in Vicksburg to work on designs. One of these, would be our new Mardi Gras.... and it all just fell into place!! We had a quick conversation on the phone and I asked her to send me some clear photos of him. She obliged! 

I especially loved this one of him hanging from their bathroom towel rack. This little fur person had quite the personality!!! So, I got to drawing and came up with this design and sent a text to Leslie with the image to see what she thought.

Then, we got to add the color to it!!! Whoop Whoop!! This is one of my favorite parts...

My friend Jeff Smith helped tweak all the colors and spent an extra amount of time on his fur so it looked perfect!! 

Let me back track....

How did River become Leslie's pet?? 

The short version....His mother was getting in the trash cans and bothering some folks. The man of the house shot and killed her.... Then, he sees that she has two babies and he thinks "Well, I've got to shoot them too!" It is my understanding, that River and his brother were about 6 weeks old. So, the man goes out to now shoot the babies and he looks at their little faces and he just can't pull the trigger. (Thank God!) He ends up taking them to the local vet in Farmerville, LA where Leslie's daughter Nicole works. She falls in love and brings one of them home. They affectionately name him "River Rat". He has been trained, given rabies vac and has even been fixed!!. He is truly their pet that they love and adore. 

And now he is quite famous!!!!

So, we get the shirt in and it is just awesome (If I do say so myself :)) And Brent has said for quite some time now that he would love to have Rob and Sara Brewer in a photo shoot with their twin grand sons. We had actually wanted to get them all in our Warhawk Plane shirts earlier this Fall and the timing never really worked out. Then, like it always does, it all just fell into place to photograph this funny raccoon with the Brewer Family at the newest coolest brewery in town...Flying Tiger!!!I love that sign they have out front.

DRINK HEROIC BEER!!!!!! 

The Brewers are one of the owners of this hot spot located at 506 North 2nd in Monroe.

www.flying-tiger-brewery.com

Photographer Heather Land was all on board and very excited to do this funny shoot with us....Only she could handle a Raccoon, twin 3 year old boys and a brewery all in one shoot!!! 

We met up at 3pm and Leslie brought him inside in his cage.

The boys were so funny checking him out. Wren and Ward are freaking adorable. Sweet little smiles, tons of energy and great hair!!! hahaha

And then we had Rob and Sara.

They are the epitome of cool (and they have some amazing hair too!!!!)... We giggled that Sara looked like the twins Hot Baby Sitter....def not their grandmother.

River was a tad nervous and very curious about the whole place. Leslie and her friend Jessica Jones kept him happy with marshmallows.

He walked around and checked out every inch go the place.

While he was walking around,

Heather snapped pics of these two generations. Loved seeing them all dance around together. So Sweet!!

I know how much joy our two little ones have brought our two families and know these two little boys have done the same. Little kids truly are a blessing!!!

Heather went back and photographer River a few more times. He seemed most comfortable perched up on this little shelf. 

We realized the Bar area was opening for business and it was time to get the Raccoon out of the place!!! HAHAHA

 If you haven't tried Flying Tiger yet, put it on your To Do list for 2017. I promise you won't be disappointed!!!  Hours of operation are Thur-Fri 4:30pm-10pm and Sat-Sun 12pm-10pm

Big THANK YOU to everyone who made this photo shoot possible. I can't tell you guys how cool it is for me to see our shirts come to life!!!

Want one of these raglans from the shoot.....

Check out our website at www.mrpstees.com. We got hit pretty hard with the first batch  (no adult mediums for the moment) but we will have more in stock in about a week. 

Thanks for reading-

Love

Lissy