You and your date need something to keep your drinks cold while on formal, right? Years ago, someone had the brilliant idea of customizing coolers to bring to fraternity formals. Girls spend painstaking hours to turn regular Igloo coolers into works of art for their dates, and it can be really stressful. If you’re dreading painting a cooler for your date because of all the work and time required, just think about the look on his face when you hand him that beautiful thing. Painting this masterpiece is time consuming, but knowing the proper steps to take will ensure your artwork isn’t rubbed off after getting dragged onto buses and taken all over the place.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- Cooler
- Sand paper/electric sander or spackling paste
- Mod Podge
- Paint
- Brushes
- A lot of time
Here’s what to do: 1. The first step is to buy your cooler, which can be found at Wal-Mart or Target. Any color is fine because you’re going to paint over it anyway.
2. You have two options when prepping for painting the cooler: You can either use sandpaper to get rid of the bumps and have a plain surface or use spackling paste and spread it on every side to get an even surface. Unless you have an electric sander, sanding down your cooler is going to be extremely difficult and time consuming.
3. Once your cooler canvas is even, paint a layer of Mod Podge on each side of the cooler, including the top. Mod Podge works as a glue, sealer, and finish for your cooler. You can look up cool designs for coolers on Pinterest or Google while you wait for that to dry. Keep in mind the formal’s theme and your date’s favorite drink, hobbies, music preferences, fraternity symbols, political affiliation, and clothing brands when looking for designs. You can also substitute any part of a label with his name or fraternity letters to make it more personalized.
4. If you’re comfortable with free-handing your designs, sketch them lightly with a pencil. If you want to include an exact image but aren’t confident in your drawing abilities, you can print out an image, such as your date’s fraternity crest, and Mod Podge it onto the cooler. Simply put a layer of Mod Podge on the area you want the image to go on, place the printed image, and paint a second layer of Mod Podge over it to seal it.5. Once you’re done decorating all five sides of the cooler, paint a final layer of Mod Podge on your cooler and you’re done! Now you can get psyched for a fun formal.
Are you stumped on stellar cooler ideas? Lucky for you, collegiettes™, I’ve picked out a few of my favorite cooler designs:
Photo Credits:www.pinterest.com