How to make a Suck for a Buck T-shirt

By far, the most search engine inquiries that I have hit has been, "How to make a Suck for a Buck T-shirt". So much so that I have dedicated a Squidoo lens to the subject at: http://www.squidoo.com/suckforabuck

It amazes me, to some degree, but then again–it doesn't. Being involved with bands and bars for many of my vast single years, I have paid more than my fair share of bucks for the "so-called" sucks. It was all in good fun, at the time, however looking back now, I feel that it was a rather silly ritual.

The public beckons, though, and needs to find out the answer (simple as it may be) to the oft-asked question, "How to make a Suck for a Buck Shirt". Who am I to deny this generation of attention-seeking Maid of Honors and Bachelorettes from the privilege of having every inebriated young man in the club drooling (literally) on them and their friends for a night– no matter how silly they one day will think it was.

So... as simple as it may be– here is the four-step process for making a Suck for a Buck T-shirt:

1) Determine what shirt you will use- This is actually one of the more difficult parts. Traditionally, a white T-shirt is fine, but in recent years, Bridesmaids have gotten more elaborate with colors and styles including tanks (which focuses the sucks in the more vital areas. You may purchase high-quality, professionally imprinted (which takes care of step-two) Suck for a Buck T-shirts at: http://www.cafepress.com/skeeteez/5842826 or use your own source.

T-shirt Tip: make sure you bring another shirt for the bachelorette in case the Suck for a Buck shirt tears or the bride-to-be wants to change later in the night.

2) Imprint the Shirt- This may be done professionally (see step-one) or at home. Iron-on sheets can be purchased and run through your computer printer or, if it comes down to it, you can use fabric paint or permanent marker.

3) Determine what kind of candy to use- Lifesavers are, traditionally, the candy of choice but, in all reality, the sky's the limit here. Any hard candy is good– mints or butterscotch candies, Blow-pops or Tootsie-pops, or any cheap candy that you have to suck. I have even seen those candy necklaces used. They left the candy on the string, wrapped it around the young lady and attached them with safety pins around the whole shirt. Pretty original and it worked well!

4) How to attach the candy- Honestly, this is the only part of the process that I can really see anyone would have questions about. Here again, if you are talking about tradition, you are using Lifesavers and you just take a needle and thread and sew them, with a couple of stitches through the hole, right to the shirt. This really works best because they are fastened securely but most grown men can snap the stitches with their teeth.

If you are using individually wrapped candy of some kind, you can fasten them with safety pins. This also works with lollypops or anything you can stick a pin through. Another option with the lollypop type candy is to poke the sticks through the shirt, but this doesn't seem very stable to me.

The last method seems a little (or a lot) gross to me but, then again, who's going to know. Lick and stick the candy to the shirt. I don't know... besides being gross for the guy, I don't know if the bride wants to wear around something that her friends' saliva is all over.

One last tip: I have seen candy for Suck for a Buck T-shirts applied with glue. I don't, in any way, recommend this method. Besides being messy, you don't want to poison any of the poor guys with toxic adhesives.