Swim Ribbon Holder

My daughter joined the swim team this year and she is so excited.  They have been swimming since the beginning of April but had their first meet on Tuesday.  It has been such a great experience for her.  We are so proud of the fact that she has found a sport that she loves so much.  We suffered through a couple of seasons of soccer.  And by suffer I mean, lots of tears, lots of "I don't want to go to practice", whining, etc.  This was not fun for ANY of us.

That being said, my little fish is competitive, she loves to win and more importantly, she loves to be recognized!  Swimming is wonderful for that, EVERYONE gets a ribbon in each race they swim (unless they are DQ'd but in the 6 & under division, the rules are pretty lax).

As soon as practice started, I knew I needed to make something for all of those ribbons.  I had a few ideas and knew I had all of the supplies for a wood sign with hooks for the ribbons, so I got to work.

I started with a 2x6 board.  Given the size, I determined my letter height to be about 2.5".  Using my trusty PowerPoint program, I found a font I liked and created my design.  (I don't have a fancy cutter and honestly, I like the painted letters better anyways.)

Since my daughter chose the phrase - peace, love, swim - using symbols for peace and love I first found the shapes using clip art and sized them appropriately.  I then selected my font and layed them out.  They actually worked perfectly on and 11" paper so i added a few inches to each side and cut my board to 17".

I painted the board a pretty pink that matches her room and the got started on the letters.  To assist with the transfer when I traced the letters, I scribbled the back of my paper with a soft leaded pencil.  I then laid it over the board and began to trace.

Once my design was on the board, I pulled out a pretty blue color and painted in the design. I felt like it seemed a bit flat so I created a shadow effect using a complimentary green.  I love how it turned out.

My original plan was to put 7 hooks across the bottom but a couple of them broke off when twisting them in so I had to go with a plan B.  Which, by the way, turned out amazing!  I simply added my daughters name down in the corner and I love it (so does she).

 

So there it is!  (Notice the soccer trophy on the dresser!  Couldn't resist pointing that out.  She has a medal too but I need to find that!) 

I have a plan for a bit of a fun collage on this wall to add some more color and fun to her room but here it is for now.  A place of honor for her 2 first place ribbons!

So far, she has learned freestyle and backstroke.  I am so excited that swimming is her thing!  I was a swim instructor and lifeguard from the age of 14 all the way through college so I love that the love of water has passed on!  (Note, my husband has a huge love of water too and can't wait until she is old enough to scuba dive!)

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