10.26.2011

DIY: Medal & Bib Holder

First things first: I have been looking for a way to display my running medals. I love training for them, earning them and getting them… unfortunately they sit on a shelf for awhile, then eventually get moved into a bag under the stairs. For all my hard work, this seems a rather unfitting resting place. I did a Google search for medal holders, or racks, or some search along this lines and found this. I thought: "What a wonderful solution for not only medals, but race bibs." I hold onto all of my race bibs and they sit in a shoe box. As you can see, I like holding onto things, but display them poorly.

I thought the idea was fairly simple and being a fan of HGTV (yep, I typed that), I figured I would try and make my own. A little DIY project that I thought I might appreciate on a personal level in the long run (pun totally intended). But to be upfront and honest, doing it myself: 1) Cost more than ordering it and 2) took a lot of trial and error to finish. Again, here is the link for my inspiration if you would like to save yourself some time and money.

But if you want to get all Tim "The Toolman" Taylor and build one yourself, here is how I made my rendition.

I purchased to pre-cut boards from a local craft store that cost me around $14.99/ea.


They have embossed edges, which was a nice touch. I then purchased some gray spray paint for $3.99 and covered both sides.




Once that was done, I purchased some stencils (around $4.99) and planned on using some leftover white paint I already had in the house. I decided to use "RACES" for the bibs, but it could really say anything.


I taped up the stencils where I wanted them and applied the white paint.


As you can see: FAIL. The paint just didn't work. This was some old paint, so it might have been too "watery" and just leaked through. I wiped down what I could while it was still wet, then simply covered the mistake up with another layer of gray spray paint. I essentially hit the "reset" button.

Since I was having success with the gray spray paint, I went back to the hardware store and bought some white spray paint ($3.99) and re-taped my letters.


As you can see, much better. (There was some white between the E and the S that leaked through, but I spray painted a Q-tip with gray and simply covered it up. (Easy-breezy.)

Next step was attaching the hanging hook for the back.



As for the front, I looked at my race bibs and there were 2 sizes. Big (NYCM, Rock n Roll Marathon size) and small (everything else). So I penciled in where the hooks needed to go and twisted the screws in. This was also the solution for the bibs on Etsy.


Once that was done, the bib project was finished.


I then repeated the same steps for the medal holder. I decided to go with RUNNING since my race distances vary, so I couldn't write MARATHONS. There are plenty of options that could be used, but I wanted to keep it simple.

After spray-painting both sides (above). I taped my letters.


As you can see, they only supplied one "N" in the box, so I had to create place holders. Spray it, then add the missing "N" where needed.


Then I measured where I wanted the hooks and screwed them into the board. I decided to go with various positions to have some medals hang at different lengths. Here is a sample of the front and back hooks for both. Packs of 4 cost me under $2. Make sure that the length of the screw isn't longer than the depth of your board.



I placed nine hooks, since I have a decent amount of medals, it needed to be able to hold quite a few at different lengths. I placed them about 3.5" apart from one another.


And that is pretty much it. Since it will hold a lot of medals, I placed 2 brackets on the back for support. I'm sure it would have been fine with one, but better safe than sorry.

Here is the final product. I only placed one medal on each hook for the photo, but I'm planning on each hook holding multiple medals.


As you can see, everything seems to have worked out. After a few missteps and multiple trips to the hardware store, they are up. I'm very happy with them and even though it cost me more in materials then it would have to simply have placed the order off Etsy, I'm glad it is something I was able to accomplish without injuring myself or cutting out the electricity in the neighborhood.

Here they are living happily together on the wall. Let me know what you think….




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21 comments:

Cassandra said...

Those look amazing! They look more like furniture than the usual hooks for medals. I love the idea for the Bib Holder. Great job!

Kristine said...

This is awesome! Love this idea, thanks for posting!

Tom said...

Thanks for sharing! I need to do this.

trumpdabeast - Jordan Trump said...

Those are pretty awesome! I actually like your design better than a lot of the ones I have seen. If only I wanted to put the time in to do that.

Fruit Fly said...

Looks great!!

Anonymous said...

that looks awesome! love that you made it yourself! congrats on all the races and the hard work put in...so much better now that you can display it!

Will Run for Health said...

I love crafting and running so this post was an epic win in my book. I LOVE how unique this looks! So freakin cute...you may have influenced me to finally organize my stuff!!!!!!

stefanoSTRONG said...

great idea! looks really cool!

Jessica (Pace of Me) said...

this is awesome!! very impressive. i need one!

Jena said...

I love this! I just told my Husband last week I need him to make me something to put my bibs & medals on! They are currently just tacked to a bulletin board - which is fine - but I want something cuter to hold them! I'm going to show him this! Nice job!

Stacy said...

This is fantastic! I too saw the ones at Etsy, but couldn't get over the eye-popping price. I'm crafty but just couldn't get my brain to engage enough to figure out how to make these on my own. I'm planning on making one set for my husband for Christmas, then another one for me for...after Christmas.

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Are you able to share the distance between the hooks for the two different bib sizes?

Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Great idea. I think I'm gonna try that. I'd been looking online also but they're super pricey.

Thanks for sharing!!!
Ben

Anonymous said...

I made one of the bib holders for a friend of mine and one for myself. But I need a little help. We are doing our first run on the 15th, so I don't know what sizes the bibs come in. Can you please give me the measurements between the hooks?

Thanks so much!

Anonymous said...

Just curious.... have you figured out the distance between hooks yet? I had the same question.

Anonymous said...

They look awesome! Thanks for taking the time to share!

Anonymous said...

This is awesome. I've been looking for a way to display my medals and bibs. I'm going to have to put this on the "to do" list for my running and for my son's soccer medals. Great job!

Anonymous said...

This is a great idea! Thank you for posting the how-to. We are going to have to make one of these for our office!

Kaila said...

Hey, I'm making one of these for my friend... Could you please tell me the distance between the hooks for the bibs? I don't have any to measure it. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

This link to their new site has the same blog with updated dimentions on how far apart the hooks are. Took A LOT of time to find this lol

http://pavementrunner.com/diy-medal-bib-holder/

Unknown said...

Wow!!!! a lot Medal you has!!!