Louisiana Flood Relief Tees

Wheewwwww- Talk about working quickly and all the pieces just falling into place. I always feel that when that happens (when you truly aren't having to push and push and push to make something work), it is "God thing".
  These Flood Relief Tees are a God thing. It was late Thursday evening. We were at home and Brent and I were discussing how we could help the community with the flood. It was/is really bad out there!

We ourselves and our families homes were not harmed by the flood. We were high and dry and just feeling restless. Then, it hit Brent. We had a garage full of brand new shirts that were originally just going to be stored until next years Big Box sale.

For reasons unknown, I did not post any of the long sleeve tees and quite a few of our tanks on the our big online sale. These shirts were just sitting there in our garage. Brand new. Still had tags. In boxes. Hello God!
    Brent said-"Lets just donate everything out there to our church". Ok. Sounds good.

And then he said-"After we do that, the rest will just fall into place. We'll know what else we are suppose to do". I agreed. (My husband is always right- yes, I said it Brent. You are are always right!) We kind of discussed maybe trying to do a new shirt to help, but the focus right now was on giving these existing tees away. I then went to go soak in the tub (my evening ritual to relax) and he went out into the garage to make sure boxes were sorted correctly and count them.
  While I was laying in the tub, I saw a post a girl had made on Thursday on our Mr P's Facebook page. Her name was Brittney Whitlock.

I then noticed how many people had "Liked" her post. Dang- maybe this is something we really need to do. Design a new shirt??? Thank you for the nudge Brittney.  Im laying there in the warm water wondering what the design could be and it just hits me....An Animal in waders standing in front of our state! YES!!! And thinking since this was happening in North Louisiana, it needed to be a deer. Im getting excited about this and start goggling pics of waders and deer!!

   So, I get out of the tub and wonder if we raise a bunch of money, who do we give it to??? I always worry about when you give to a group, does the money stay in town?? Well, it seemed like a no brainer to give it to our church-First West.  First West has two locations-one in West Monroe and one in Sterlington. This is good bc both Monroe, West Monroe, and Sterlington residents will be helped. The church was already giving out care packages to help people immediatly who only had the shirts on their backs, and sending tons of towels and pillows to area shelters. I sent a message to our preacher, Michael Wood and to Mark Fenn to make sure this was ok with them. I knew also that if we did this and the shirts were a hit, we would need the church's help with packaging orders, etc. I got both of their blessings to proceed on.
  So, I climb in bed, got under the covers and start sketching. The drawing just came so easy.

I then sent a text to my friend Jeff Smith who owns Muscle Club Apparel and helps with our graphics at Tommys Tees. I had no idea if he would be at work on Friday and could help me get this laid out quickly. As always, he said no problem.Thank you again Jeff!

The drawing was complete

and ready to scan and send to Jeff on Friday morning. We looked at a couple of different layouts (this one was cute, but didn't want our logo on the front)

and the design was finalized by 10am on Friday.

  Meanwhile, Brent took approximately 575 new shirts to the Thrift store.

They were pumped to get them!

Got a bunch of sweet messages that people were excited to receive them.

Our community is truly AMAZING!!! People volunteering everywhere! People cooking meals, people watching other people's kids so they could go help make sand bags. Other area churches supplying food for displaced folks and others were supplying buckets of cleaning supplies for people. I love the Twin Cities. I saw where Cara's Boutique donated all profits from their sales in one day to help.... People just doing what they could with their gifts, time, energy to help others.  There were quite a few sore men (and women!) today at church from all the shoveling and lifting. Thank you!!!
  So, as of right now (4pm on Sunday), we have sold 1057 adult tees and 154 youth tees.  The pre order ends this coming Thursday. Want to order yours?? Go to www.mrpstees.com. Shirts will be ready to ship out in about 2-3 weeks.  Adult tees are $25 and youth are $20. If you want to pick yours up locally, enter promo code FIRSTWEST at checkout. We will email you once they are ready to pick up at the Thrift Store office.
  Are you itching to get out of the house and go volunteer?

Or do you need help from all the water?? Check out the First West App.

There is a spot to register to VOLUNTEER and their is also a place to fill in if you need Help too.

   Brent and I truly thank you all for always supporting our little t-shirt company. We are so happy to be able to do something like this to give back to our home town and Parish.  Im so thankful to God for giving me the ability to draw and an organized husband with a caring mind to see the big picture.
   The original number in my head was 1150. I wanted to sell that many...and we are so close to reaching that, but did I set the bar too low?? How great would it be to reach a total of 1500? or even 2000 tees?? We will keep you guys posted on the tshirt count.  :)

Thanks for reading-
Love,
Lissy

Graffiti Art Photo Shoot

I love Graffiti!! And maybe that is because I am an art teacher, but I have always thought it was cool. I taught a group of my students from OJH about the famous graffiti artist named "Banksy". This is an example of one of Banky's pieces.

We made our own stencils and everything. Fun fun fun...So, When I was looking over our new designs for Spring, it hit me that I really wanted to showcase some of these tees (esp on the kids!) with a hip hop street vibe. Reminded me of that "Downtown" song by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis video....Have you guys seen this?

  I was a women on a mission. Like a lot of you, my time is LIMITED so... what is the fastest way to find graffiti in town???? Yep- you just post on Facebook that you are hunting for some.

The comments came flooding in and I really appreciated it. I spent a couple of hours one afternoon after school driving around town looking at the places mentioned.

 
Brent was a little nervous for me at times and I kept him on the phone when in some not so safe areas of town. I found a decent spot over near Forsythe Park that we didn't end up using, but I liked. I really wanted to go see "THE MAZE"... I had always heard about this place-esp in high school, but was never brave enough to go there. There were always crazy stories about Devil worshippers there. HA! Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it is my understanding that it is some type of water relief valve for all of Monroe that empties out into the Ouachita River.  I knew it was somewhere behind Genusas.... after walking over the levee,

I immediately saw it. J-A-C-K-P-O-T!!!

 Lots of colorful art all over the place. Some of it was bad, but most of it wasn't. Thankful that the little models we had coming didn't know how to read yet!  "Bye Felicia"...so funny!

  *** Let me stop and make sure you guys know that NO ONE got down inside the maze for photos. We stayed on top at all times and also had some security there too for extra safety. I wouldn't advise EVER getting down inside that place. Water starts shooting out all of a sudden and can rise up so quickly, that you could get stuck and drown. ****

  Okay, with that warning out of the way, back to the photo shoot. I had sent my Mom on a mission to find me lots of side walk chalk. Found at Hobby Lobby! Thanks Mom.

  We had our 4 little precious models lined up...first up was the brother and sister duo Cole and Claire Cunningham. Their mama Brittney loves our clothes and has posted lots of cute pics of these two in them. Here is one I saw of them during Mardi Gras time.

Claire is almost 5 and could be a freakin' hair model.  Gorgeous! No amount of extensions or horse shampoo (HA!) could ever make my hair look as good as hers. Claire was a pro at modeling and did everything we asked her to do. Impressed!!!

She had on our new little hot pink v neck featuring the Dogwood flower.

 Cole is 18 months and is a mover!! He was a little nervous at first during the shoot but once he got a piece of chalk in his hand, he was all smiles.

He had on our new Cowboy Rex tee.

  Next was Paisley- She is almost 3 and her mom is the famous Kelsey Bourg Tanner who teaches at Debbies School of Dance. Both mother and daughter have walked the runway for us in the past for Fashion Fusion.  Paisley is a little blonde beauty who oozes confidence and personality! I loved how comfortable she was in front of the camera. She had on her little ripped jeans and converse with her Tiger tee and just looked the part of the coolest little 3 year old ever.

Here is a close up of her tee...

 Last, but not least was Regan Pilcher who is 2.  He and his pretty mama Meredith have modeled for us before. I don't think I have ever seen him get upset.

He has the best little attitude and the great hair too!! Meredith teaches dance at Linda Lavendar and is Claire's teacher. So, everyone had a connection. He was wearing our new Cluck Taylor tee.

 Our photographer for the event was Donielle Barnes.

She has photographed for us before and is always so laid back and easy to work with. I was so thankful to catch her on a weekend trip to Monroe and use her again. She is Regans' aunt~ so he is always happy to see her!!
  We got some cute photos of the kids behind a green building

It def takes a village to get all the little people in the right position!! :)

and the Voila.....

And also in front of a yellow dumpster.

Loved the contrast with Coles Dinosaur shirt. There was also some old roll up door that had neat texture that we got the kids in front of.

The best part of the shoot was seeing the kids with the chalk making their own art.

Check out this really great one of Paisley!!

They all really relaxed during this part. After everyone was covered in chalk dust :), I handed out our new military green Eagle Pride tees for the kids to all put on.

Loved seeing them all match! The shirt looked great on both boys and girls.

The grass was tall on the levee and Donielle got some amazing pics of them all nestled in it and then standing on the path.

And here was one of the ones that Donielle got...

It was a perfect afternoon next to the river.

Not too hot or too cold. Thankful for these sweet mamas who took the time to let us photograph their kiddos.

  These new tees (plus a bunch more in adult too) will be available next week at the Monroe , LA Junior League Spring Market at the Monroe Civic Center. Starts Friday March 18th-20th.  We will have two booths!!

Thanks for reading :)

Love
Lissy

P.S. Our Brand Rep Search starts on Monday March 21st-April 4th on Instagram. Want to rep us and get free clothes and discounts??? If you are in-between the ages of 6 months -24 years, and love our clothes, then this is for you!! www.mrpstees.com.    #MrPsRep2016