Sharpies and teenagers. A match made in heaven.  Ask any teenager and they’ll tell you straight out how much they love Sharpies.  It’s like they actually invented the things!  That’s ok.  They can take all the credit.  After all, teens have provided plenty of inspiration for the Sharpie brand team over the years, and have shown all of us over here at the marker factory just what a Sharpie can do.  There’s just something about a free-spirited teen living the life that lends itself to wild and crazy Sharpie experiments.

Speaking of….Judy and Caitlin Hudgins of Apex, North Carolina were enjoying a leisurely sick day at home recently and decided to send me some photos of Caitlin’s Sharpie experiment.  Have a look:  

15-year old Caitlin and her Teen Jeans

That little blue bag she's holding? Her Sharpie Stash.

These are just so the thing.  Forget Facebook and MySpace.  Who needs all that technology when you can express yourself right on your own personal billboard, your jeans.  Say it loud, say it proud with Sharpie!  Bonus points:  What a great way to pass the time in study hall (after all the studying is done, of course).

Here’s Caitlin telling us all about it:  Mom Judy chimes in at the end…

How old are the jeans?

They are not even a year old yet.

When did you start doodling with Sharpies on them?

This is like my 10th pair of pants. The others are not so fortunate, but they stay clean maybe for a week then I go to town.

What are some of the statements you make with Sharpies on the jeans?

I’ll draw cartoon characters, just random sayings like “United States Marine Corps,” “Death over Dishonor,” anything I want goes on there.

Are you using your jeans as sort of a personal billboard? What’s your overall message, if any?

I guess I am in a way, but it’s not really a message. It’s more of showing people who I am. It’s a way of expressing myself.

Have you washed the jeans? How are they faring? Do you have other pairs?

I have washed them alot. Aside from the already huge holes in one pair, the art fades away a little, but that makes me only want to add more.

Do other people sign them, sort of like a cast?

Everytime I make a new pair of jeans my friends sign them from Day One till the end.  I’ll call it a cast of friendship.

Do you think this is a hot new trend?

I do think it is. Others may not, but they just don’t know it yet. So maybe 5, 10 years down the road it will be the hottest thing, they will look back to high school and say “that girl started all of this. Maybe she wasn’t weird at all for writing on her pants after all.”

What would one need if one was to embark on a Sharpie jean frenzy like you have?

An imagination and of course Sharpies.  Don’t try and sit down and expect you can cover a pair in 5 minutes. They take time, patience and it’s a lot of fun.

Will you save these forever and ever, sort of like a baby blanket? Do you think you’ll frame them one day?

Honestly, the pair with the holes I know will not last, but I can try. In a way they always have been my baby blanket. I could try to frame them, but (in the future) my kids and husband may really think I’m crazy then. But can’t blame a girl for trying.

And now a word from Judy, Caitlin’s mother:

“From a mother’s point of view, I just about died the first time I saw the $40 pair of jeans done up like this. Since then, the understanding is all the jeans she gets from Goodwill (which is most of them) she is free to draw on. And the Sharpies really, really last in the wash. They have faded very little.  I am working on a blue jean ‘apron’ for gardening for my mother and am decorating it with Sharpie’s.”  (See, even moms love Sharpies!)

Caitlin, covering all the angles: