Last year when I went to the Farm Chicks show,Kim from Camp Whimsy and I encouraged other bloggers to create badges to wear. The intent was for bloggers to connect and say hello. I met some great gals and the idea worked well and I will be wearing my badge again this year.
Inspired by this initial badge I was recently contacted by a blog reader and Etsy customer, Melissa, to create a special badge for her. She is a huge University of Kansas Jayhawks fan and wanted to have a unique badge to show her spirit.
I love projects like this and thought I would share what I came up with...
I used an old prize ribbon and basically revamped the whole thing in the spirit of the Jayhawks. The Jayhawk logo I copied from their website and printed it out on card stock. It is mounted on a old poker chip. I mounted the poker chip with the foam mounting squares to give it some depth. A couple of red and blue feathers peek out from under the poker chip. I also had to add a bit of glitter (of course).
I wanted to decoupage some old newspaper to the background to cover the original horse logo on the ribbon. I used a cardboard circle and decoupaged vintage newspaper to it. The oddest thing about this whole project was the newspaper I used. I have a huge stack of vintage newspaper (well preserved library archive).
I got the newspaper quite a few years ago on a Kansas road trip. The
newspaper is dated 1936..it is from Lawrence, Kansas - the HOME of
the JAYHAWKS! How is that for a really random coincidence? If you look
at the newspaper I decoupaged you will see the words "Kansas Wins" and "Jayhawkers" -
it was from an old original sports page dated 1936! A project meant to
be!
The words "ROCK CHALK" are a popular phrase on the KU campus. I color copied old Anagram letters (reducing the size) and decoupaged those on the badge. I have vintage ones that come in a couple of colors, but I liked the yellow ones that matched the Jayhawk's beak.
I also wanted to have the word "Jayhawks" somewhere on the badge. I used an old fabric tape measure that was pretty faded on one side and rubber stamped the word out. I darkened it a bit with a sharpie marker.
I am boxing this off and mailing it out to Melissa. I think she will like it. I hope it has inspired you to do something fun with an old prize ribbon as well!