I’m Feeling Crafty

Last week, I mentioned that I was going to put up a few pictures of the little soccer themed medals I made for Co’s team.  A little background: Co is in the midst of her first soccer season via the YMCA.  As the date for the first game drew closer, the hubby kept getting emails saying that the team had no coach. The emails grew more and more persistent — there’s no coach, we’d really like a parent to step up and coach, the team needs a coach — you get the idea.  So, my dear, dear, hubs decided to earn some cool points with his youngest daughter and signed up to be the coach. 

I joke on him about it, but in truth, it’s really sweet.  My hubby is a few inches over 6 feet tall and it’s absolutely precious to see him getting out on the field with seven pig-tail sporting, jersey clad soccer superstars.

Talking strategy
 

Anyway, aside from taking our turn bringing snack to the team over the course of the season, I thought it would be nice to make a little memento for the kiddos.  Surprisingly, Pinterest wasn’t involved!  I mean, I had an idea that was relatively easy to execute. I didn’t need any Pinterest suggestions to totally blow my good intentions out of the water and then everyone ends up empty handed at the end of the season.

So, here’s what I did. . .

I figured it would be best to use the team colors as the basis for the medal.  The team name — The Camels — proved a bit challenging for me to try to incorporate into a craft-tastic project.  I even Googled “soccer camel” and the results were way less than stellar.  I’m no artist, either.  I mean, I can get by with some caricatures and doodles, but my attempts at a soccer playing camel cartoon were alternately hilarious and pathetic.  If you thought Joe Camel looked like a penis, imagine him in full Pélé gear with a football shaped soccer ball at this feet.  Yeah, that’s kind of how my rendering came out.

A trip to the craft shop for some cardstock and stickers (yay!)  turned things around immensely.  Here are my supplies:

1. Cardstock in the team colors: black, white and red. I even splurged on the fancy, textured cardstock.  You can’t see if in the above picture, but each piece is Swiss dot.  Ooohh la la!
2. A set of stickers that featured soccer balls and practice cones.
3. A set of alphabet stickers (because my handwriting is atrocious).
4. A roll of white satin ribbon.
5. My circle cutter from my stint as a card making Stampin’ Up! fanatic.
6. A glue stick
So, I made several concentric circles in the various colors.  I figured the black would serve as a great background with the white as an eye catching accent and the red, the perfect canvas for the lettering.  Snipped two lengths of ribbon, crossing one end and gluing it to the black. Then I affixed the remaining circles to the black circle.  I snipped the loose ends of the ribbon to get those little points and let the whole thing dry.  
Once everything was stuck together, I broke out the stickers and set to work.  You’d think with only seven girls on the team, this would be easy, but let me tell you, those Alpha-Dot stickers are incredibly adhesive to their own backing.  For every letter I pulled up, at least half of it still had paper stuck to it.  Tweezers would have come in handy, but of course, I didn’t think of that until after the fact.  Like I said, I opted for stickers because my handwriting isn’t the greatest. I should have invested in a level or some kind of centering device as well because eyeballing the center of the circle so that the name lines up just so left a lot to be desired.  With the names in place, I embellished the circle with a soccer ball and a cone.  It still looked a little plain, so contrary to my own intentions, I picked up a Sharpie and free-handed the season and the year under each kids’ name, along with a “Go Camels!” across the top.
And ta-da!
Everyone’s a winner!

 Co is really enjoying being a Camel and has scored at least one goal at each game.  Aside from some pictures we’ve snapped, now she’s got a little something extra to commemorate her super season.  As for me and my crafty ribbon/medal making, let’s just say all those shops on Etsy can breathe easy. Way easy. . .

IN: ON: April 24, 2012 BY: Hilary 1 COMMENT
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