fingerprint tie

After 12 years at Pia’s school, our wonderful, fabulous principal is leaving for another school in another state. As a going-away gift Pia’s class made a fingerprint tie for him. What is a fingerprint tie? Well, this is our version:

1. Begin with your inspiration, in this case our beloved principal who won’t shy away from wearing ‘fun’ ties.

2. Attempt to find a sold colored cotton tie at a store. Fail.

3. Go to plan B and make a tie out of suitable fabric (we chose grey cotton) using this awesome tutorial from the Purl Bee. I never in a million years thought I would find myself sewing a tie… it was immensely satisfying and gave me new respect for tie-makers worldwide.

4. Add a message to the back of the tie where the tag would normally go. We chose the message “You have touched our lives forever. We will miss you.” I printed the message on printer fabric, cut the edges with pinking shears, and hand stitched the tag to the tie.

5. Using acrylic fabric paint, hope for the best and ask each kid to put their fingerprint on the tie. I had each kid dip their finger in a little puddle of paint, dab their finger on the palette once to get off any excess paint, then guided their finger to a place on the tie and smooshed their finger to get a good print.

6. 34 kids and 4 teachers later the tie is officially fingerprint-dotted. Of course, I failed to take a picture of the tie after all the fingerprints were done, so the picture below is only half-embellished.