Big Oops on Ordering Shirts - Shred the Competition

Princess Four is Student Body President this year. One of the first things she was told about the year is that they are in the hole about $1,200. I guess when they ordered shirts for last year, the teacher that was supposed to sign off on the shirts ordered double the amount than they usually order. This was a disaster since the years were put on the shirts and of course if the kids all have one shirt, they won't buy the same shirt for the next year especially with the wrong year printed on it. 

This news stressed Princess Four out as she starts the year out with no money and has to try and catch up and make some money before they can do anything fun for the year. The office did say they would help find some other sources of money but I put on my thinking cap and came up with a few suggestions to try and make up some of that money back that was lost on the shirts. 

I suggested that they turn the shirts inside out and get someone to silk screen "We turn the competition inside out" and just have everyone wear the shirts inside out. However, that would cost about $2 a shirt for the new silk screen. Even if we could sell the shirts for $4, we still only get $2 back per shirt. I was hoping for more so I came up with the idea to allow the students to pay $5 and get out of class ten minutes early and pay to "shred" a shirt for homecoming. 
 
The theme for Homecoming can be, "Shred the competition." The kids seemed to like this idea so I pulled some old shirts out of the rag bin and started experimenting by shredding them in different ways.

I have this cloth shredder for rags and tried that on the shirts but I didn't like the way it pulled and rolled the fabric. It would work for a boys shirt but really trashes the shirt.    

You can see it is uneven and looks shredded. I kind of liked the more organized but shredded look when we used the scissors and made the strips a bit more even.

I tried three different types of styles on my scrap shirts. Then, I had Princess Four and Five look at them and decide how we should cut up the actual shirts to show as examples of ways the students can shred them for the parade and game. 

They liked the cut strips for one and did like the shredded look for a boy style. Having all girls, it is not always easy to take that perspective. However, the girls tend to know what the boys like so hopefully we have that covered. 
 
Here is my favorite one that I practiced on. I am glad the girls liked the idea as this way, they will get $5 a shirt and hopefully make up the deficit quickly. 

She presented it to the student body government and they all liked the idea so I will have to show you how we shredded the shirts tomorrow.