Sharpie My World - And Yours (A Giveaway)

I'm taking an art class right now and loving it.  It is not so much learning art techniques, although there is some of that, but it is rather inspiring us to be creative.  So often in the hustle and bustle of daily life we don't take the time to do something creative.  It is one of the reasons I love blogging and photography as they let me get the creative juices flowing; however, I also used to enjoy painting and sketching when I took art in high school, but I haven't done much of that since then.  So when my friend Jennifer started an art school I thought it would be fun to join.  Now I'm busy using my right brain every Monday night.  

I was recently asked to review the new Sharpie fabric pens, so I asked Jennifer if she wanted to include them in the art classes in some way.  What she decided was that she needed some help making art smocks for her children's and teen's classes.

Jennifer bought some purple denim work shirts at a thrift store and our project was to turn them into the smocks. Originally we thought we would bleach a circle above the pocket and use the fabric markers to decorate the bleached area.

It's funny how things turn out for the best in the end.  It's just as well that the bleach circle didn't work because we came up with a better idea.  We cut the end of the sleeves off the shirts (they would be too long for the children anyway) and used the inside of the fabric, which happened to be white.  We drew circles on the white fabric and cut those out to decorate with the Sharpie markers.  

Jennifer's art school logo is a circle with a triangle inside it, so we used that as the base for our designs and then we went wild and decorated each one differently.

Jennifer is going to use fabric glue to attach the circles along with some ribbon onto the front of the shirts just above the pockets so they look like lollipops sticking out of the pockets (something like how we placed them in the photo below).

Don't they look cute - it was a lot of fun and now there are all these circles ready to be put on art smocks.

We always work best when plied with lattes and chocolate brownies - definitely right-brain food.

Now as for the fabric pens - I haven't used any other fabric markers so I don't have a lot to compare them too, but I was pleased with how they covered the material.  The ink lasted well and made nice bright colours.  The tips were very pointed for drawing fine lines, but you could also use the sides for thicker lines.  We did find that the ink stayed wet for a few minutes after we drew with the pens so you had to be careful about smudging the work if you brushed past it and about having one colour run into another colour if they weren't dry when you drew next to it.  Once we got on to these tips we really enjoyed using the fabric pens.

Not only was I sent some Sharpie fabric markers to try, but I am also able to offer a giveaway consisting of a package of Sharpie products and a white baseball cap to unleash your creativity on.   I begged and pleaded asked nicely and the giveaway is now open to not only residents of Canada, but also the United States.  
Here's what you have to do to enter the giveaway:

• For one entry - leave a comment letting me know you are a follower of my blog.
• For a second entry - blog, tweet, or mention the giveaway on Facebook (and please leave a second comment to let me know).

Also please, please, please be sure and leave me your email address so I can reach you if you are the lucky winner.  This giveaway finishes at 9 pm EST on Friday, May 4th, 2012.