Kustom Koozies

The Beer Koozie serving its purpose

A dear friend celebrated his 70th birthday last month.

And, yes, I have friends of all ages.

My friend's family wanted to do something fun, crazy and different and decided to have a Pedal Party. Since the family was footing the bill for the Pedal Party I wanted to contribute some kind of party favor. I decided to have custom beer can koozies printed up.

Well, I did some research and found several companies that would print up koozies for varying fees. I only wanted 16-20 so that narrowed down the selection of places that would accommodate small orders. I found a company that had decent prices and a design wizard on their site with a selection of clip art. Not terribly great but at least I could have whatever text I wanted.

Well, I waited just a tad too long to place the order and found out that a rush job with rush shipping (3 weeks is considered "rush") was going to cost me $75 for 16 koozies. Um.....no!

I looked online and found that one can order blank koozies. I'm crafty, right? I can make my own darned koozies and they will be fabulous!

The koozie pictured above is what I came up with. The blanks were way cheaper than the printed versions and I was able to order a pack of 20 that were pre-sewn. Looking back I wish I would have ordered the unsewn version. They were cheaper plus I could have used my sewing machine to attach all of the patches and then sew up the sides.

Anywhoo.... I created a custom image using Photoshop. If you try this at home make sure you measure your koozie and plan out how large you want the patch to be. I was able to fit 9 of the images on a 8.5" x 11" piece of paper. I printed out the design on t-shirt transfer paper which you can pick up at your local craft store or office supply store.

The images were cut out and ironed onto patches made from an old flat sheet that my dog, Lola, decided to didn't need to be in one piece anymore.

I then hand stitched each patch onto a koozie using a thick needle and embroidery floss. The first 5 koozies weren't so bad but pushing and pulling a needle through that thick koozie material took a toll on my fingers.  This was the point where I realized the unsewn koozies would have been the better choice. I ended up using a pair of pliers to finish the hand sewing.

Some of the iron-ons had a few tears where the transfer wasn't heated up enough to be separated from the backing paper. To hide those flaws and add some bling I used my Hot-fix tool and applied some crystals. One of Mo's craft rules - Sparkles make it better.

The Beavis enjoying his koozie

The koozies were a hit and turned out to be pretty tough. The Beavis accidentally dropped his koozie on the street while the Pedal Party was in transit. He was able to recover and use it even after it was run over by several cars.

Oh, and if you are wondering, "...what the heck is a Pedal Party"? It is this awesome mobile bar that you pedal down the street like a bike. The "bike" can hold 16 people plus the driver and is pedaled by 10 people. Check out the link above.

That's me on the back bench. The minimum height for those that pedal this contraption is 5'4". I was no where near able to reach the pedals so I got to hang out on the back bench and enjoy the ride and my beer.