Saturday, November 18, 2017

Reuse, Reduce, Recycle: A Trophy Wife

A few months ago my parents came to visit with two extra suitcases. But that wasn't because they were staying for a month. It was because they had cleaned out their garage. Straight into mine, apparently.

Out of the suitcases came my old letter jacket, porcelain dolls that were gifts from family friends and my old softball trophies.



The letter jacket went back into garage storage (for my 20th HS reunion?!) and the porcelain dolls were set aside for Peanut. But what should I do with my trophies? I felt guilty for throwing them out, but I didn't want to put them back into storage. We definitely weren't going to display them on our mantle.

After perusing a few websites, I decided to make Peanut a hat/hoodie/purse rack from them.

Last month I made a hat rack for Bjorn using an old skateboard and it was a huge hit. This was Peanut's turn.

As I gathered all the materials and started the project, I found that it was actually pretty easy to unscrew the tops off the trophies. Off came all the little softball girls (and one or two soccer players). I spray painted them Peanut's color of choice and set them aside.



I had an old hat rack I found at a garage sale for .25 - boring old wood with boring old hooks on it.  But I knew that piece of wood was going to be perfect for something some day. And here was someday, just staring me in the face!

I unscrewed the boring "drunk Octopus" hooks and gave Peanut a gallon of mint-colored paint and a paintbrush. Presto chango, we had a pretty piece of wood with holes already properly spaced.

The screws on the trophy heads were larger than the pre-made holes, so I used a drill bit to widen them. Then all I had to do was twist them into the holes!



I love the way it turned out and I love that I was able to reuse my childhood trophies. Since I still have some left, I am looking to make a purse rack for me, too!

This is what the rack looked like 5 minutes after I hung it. So neat and pretty. 

This is what it looks like now. This is real life!