It's no secret that I recently posted about my hoarding tendencies and my take-away tubs of bits and pieces (including product tags that come off pencil cases). After a morning of watching swimming highlights and medal ceremonies with the girls it was off to swimming lessons yesterday. When Mimi got out of the pool she asked me whether she'd swum well."Really well," I said, "you deserve a medal."
"Yay! Where is it it?" she replied.
"Um," I stammered, "it's at home."
Hmmm... ok then... I thought about racing into the local Dollar Store for a packet of 'winner' medals, but that would be craft-cheating, so on the drive home I cast my mind back through my plastic storage tubs and remembered what other things I had stashed there and I came up with a crafty solution...
Believing a bit of tough love never goes astray, I told the girls when we got home that they could have a medal each for their great swimming; but they had to make it themselves. Loving craft as they do, they were happy to oblige.
Here's what you'll need to make a medal out of bag tags:
- Several round product tags - OR - round pieces of cardboard with a hole punched into them.
- Several large pieces of foil saved from last Easter's eggs - OR - some foil from the kitchen draw.
- Paper stars - OR - other embellishments.
- Temporary tack - OR - glue.
- Shiny curling ribbon - OR - any other type of ribbon or string.
- A thin gently-pointy object, (such as broken paint brush!) that can safely poke small holes.
Here's how to make an Olympic Medal:
- Wrap the foil around the bag tag.
- Gently, tuck it around so that the shape is nice and round (you could tape it in place but we didn't).
- Use the paint brush (or other object) to push a hole through the foil in line with the hole in the cardboard (you may have to unwrap the foil in part to find the hole if you can't feel it through the foil.)
- Decorate the front of the medal (of course your definition of a 'small' blob of temporary tack may be different to Little Lotti's!)
- String it onto the ribbon.
- Put it on, stand on the podium and make your acceptance speech!
Mimi took her medal ceremony very seriously, and was slightly miffed to have to share the bedside-table-podium with her sister. Little Lotti was content with her cherry-red medal for coming second (which she was in birth order), but was unimpressed when Mimi kept subtly, but determinedly, trying to elbow her off the podium. Eventually she ran off to play with her toy pony (I'll blog his ribbon tomorrow!) and Mimi was content to conduct her interview with her invisible friends Bunny and Africa; "thanks for this medal... it means a lot to me... thanks to my mom... boohoo... sorry, I'm just so sad I didn't win two medals... I really wanted to do better... maybe next Olympics... if I'm not too old...." and so on and on...
You never know what young minds are taking from the TV they watch, but when you do get something of an insight... sometimes you realize perhaps its better not to know.
Stay crafty people. x
