Swim Team Ribbon Holder

So, we had our first experience with swim team this summer..  And experience it was!!  Imagine five days a week beginning at 9 AM till almost 1 PM keeping 3 little bodies sunscreened up, hydrated, fed and content in the hot and humid Texas sun...  I had to get up super early to pack the swim goggles, sunscreen, towels, swim toys when not practicing, swim trunks, cooler full of snacks, drinks, second breakfast and first lunch!  It's a GREAT experience for the kids, but not so much fun for me!  :)

Don't know why the wall showed up so yellow, it's a beige wall.

Anywho, my oldest really took to swim team!!  He couldn't even swim across the pool at the first practice!  In fact, I told my husband not to remove the tags from the already bought swim team uniforms and practice suits and I kept the receipts handy!!  Well, he wasn't really into the first practices other than having the joy of being in a pool, which was fine with us, but if he couldn't swim across, he wouldn't make the team, making the already bought suits unnecessary...   Well, this was the pace until the first swim meet...

Once he realized that you can receive a ribbon for swimming across the pool and that the different colors mean different places, then all bets were off!  He took to the water like a fish!!  It is amazing how some people are really visual with their rewards and when he saw the ribbons, that's what really motivated him!

Well we didn't really have a good place to put these ribbons and I didn't know where we could find a ribbon holder, not that I wanted to pay for one...  This was his first year and I didn't want to make a huge or even small investment if it turned out to be a one shot experience, so the handy girl came out in me...  Also, the late, overextended mom came out too, since I finished this in December!!

Now of course, I don't have any before pics, but imagine a plain piece of wood and the tute explains the rest.

Materials:

Craft wood from hardware store
Leftover spray paint
Computer/copy paper/pencil
Paint Pens
Tacks/Hammer/Paper Towel
Picture Hangars

Instructions:

1. Spray paint the wood a couple of coats of your favorite paint color.
2. Find an image online for your team.
3. Using your copy paper and pencil, lightly trace the image onto your paper from your computer screen.
4. Shade all over the BACK of your image with your pencil. 
5. Turn your image over and trace it onto your wood.
6. Color in the image with your paint pens.  My image took two coats of paint pen because the background color was so dark.
7. Affix the picture hangers to the back of your wood.
8. Hammer in the tacks to the front of your wood.  I placed a paper towel over my tacks, so the hammer wouldn't scratch them up.
9. Hang your ribbons.
10. Hang on the wall for your guppy to see how he progressed with the effort he put forth on swim team.
11. Enjoy the fruits of your efforts!

Steps 3 and 5

Step 4

Anyone can do this, because if you can trace and color, you can do it.  You probably have all of the items already in your craft stash.   The piece of wood was a couple of bucks and I had everything else.   This was really done in less than an afternoon and that includes drying time.  This was a lot of fun and if we do this again in 2014, I can whip up another in no time!

Take care,
Morgan

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