Happy Sunday!  I was excited to finish a few projects this weekend while it rained –> this one was a biggie.  In part 4 of going through my boxes of childhood, we encounter trophies.  Apparently volleyball was more of a medal and plaque sport, while soccer stuck to trophies, and since I played soccer for about 11 years, I had my fair share of trophies to go through.  When I say my childhood was filled of sports, it was my life and I loved every minute, so needless to say I’m pretty attached to some of these trophies and the memories behind them (Read: Pretty unwilling to give them up).

Even though I was attached to my stuff, I didn’t want the office to look like a blast from my past, so I was willing to find creative ways to display trophies, while keeping the room somewhat classy and cute –> cue more Pinteresting for ideas.  I especially liked 2 pins (example 1, and example #2) and decided to do a combination of 3 different things to take care of my soccer stuff.

Repurposing Trophies & Medals

What you’ll need:

• Trophies & medals!
• Flat head screwdriver
• Socket wrench
• 2 Frames, one for trophy plates, and one for medals
• Spray paint
• Hot glue gun
• Stapler
• Paint

The first challenge was deciding which trophies I cared enough about to save.  Not going to lie, this was harder than I thought and I took a trip down memory lane reliving all the soccer teams and moments around each of those tournaments.

Display #1: Spray Paint & Flat Bases

Some of the trophies I kept were because of the base of the trophy, since I wanted to keep some of the flat bases to stack.  After choosing the flat bases, I unscrewed the top of the trophy from the bases with the socket wrench, so I just had the base and no crazy, gold soccer player on top.

I kept a few trophies I liked with their tops, because I was going to spray paint them — I know I sound a little crazy right now, but trust me (and if you’ve been to The Alley, you know what I’m talking about).  I unscrewed the bases (so they wound’t get painted) and took the trophies to the garage to spray paint.  It took about 3-4 coats to get the trophies coated and cover up my blunders.. I also ended up spray painting more trophies than I intended to use, in case I totally messed up.  Then I let them dry over night.

After the paint dried,  I screwed their bases back in and stacked them with the other bases until I liked what I had.  I think I will use 2 of these “stacks” as bookends when I get some shelves up and my books out of a box.  You could even use the bases as bookends without attaching the trophy piece back on top.

PS – You can find the follow up project where I made bookends out of the trophy bottoms here!

Display #2: Frame trophy plates.

I just decided to keep the little metal plate from some of the trophies, especially the ones with a slanted base or an ugly top.   I used a screwdriver to pry the plate from the base of the trophy and put them aside.  Some of the plates were really thin, so I bent them a little when removing them from the base and had to bend  it back to be flat again.

Instead of getting a cork board like I did with the volleyball stuff, I just got a normal 5×7 frame float frame, arranged the trophy plates on the back pane of glass, and closed the frame up!  Since the frame background is clear, it will look good against the gray walls (better than a black background).  When I put the frame together a few plates shifted a little and aren’t quite perfectly straight, but it’s close enough for me.

And just like that two boxes of trophies were easily condensed into a small frame and a few trophy bases!

Display #3: Frame medals with the ribbon.

Lastly, I had a few soccer medals that I wanted to keep from my AFC Lightning days, and decided to frame them with the medal’s ribbon.  I bought a long, skinny frame, and arranged the medals on it to make sure it was the right size.  I decided to paint the back of the frame (that faces out) the same steel gray from the volleyball cork board, in order to be the background for the medals and for some constancy.  After 2 coats were dry, the medals were ready to be attached.

I wrapped the ribbon around the front of the frame, and then stapled and hot glued it into place, with the medal hanging in the middle of the frame — staples on the back at the top and bottom and hot glue to keep the medal still.

Once the medals were secure, I put the frame back together, without the glass (it wouldn’t fit with the medals) and I was done!  Much easier than anticipated, and the thinner frame is nicer than a huge frame with the entire ribbon showing, or the medal just hanging on a hook.

So there’s my take on a few different ways to display your sports swag, in a not-so-cheesy way, so it doesn’t look like a 7 year old boy’s bedroom (at least I hope it doesn’t…).  And at the end of the day, I still filled a bag with trophies, a few medals and plaques that I am donating to kids.  Plus I’m looking forward to getting these actually displayed in the office! Maybe one day, right?

You might also be wondering, “Where is all of Hunter’s stuff?” Good question. Turns out he has a lot of tennis swag, but it’s all at his parents’ house for now although I’m sure they would love to get rid of it.  Patty and Scott, we’ll gladly take it — I’m ready to tackle his stuff now!