Parents Displaying/storing your gymnast's memorabilia?

[NH~GymMom]

We just have a shelf with a small rod like a curtain rod affixed under it. Trophies and other things go on the shelf, medals hang on the rod. She doesn't have a ton of medals so now they are all nice and spaced out but we could easily mush them together to make more room if necessary. If it every gets to be too much for that space, we'll just remove the oldest ones and box them away.

I keep her scores and placements in a spreadsheet in case she ever wants to look back at them. So far, she has no interest!

 

[Really]

I bought this for dd: Link Removed

I love this seller's options.

I plan to do a shadow box with her Leo, a couple ribbons and picture of her at state.

I love the idea of a shadow box for her competitive leo. After all, I paid $85 for the danged thing!

 

[Really]

best invention for medals and ribbons ever It was designed for gymnasts, has lines for meet, date, place, score. Absolutely love it.
Link Removed

I like this for "archiving" older medals and ribbons. I think DD would like to have the current and last year's stuff on the walls for inspiration. Maybe a simple curtain rod will do for that.

 

[Really]

We do this...View attachment 6177

Dang! Good work, mama!!!

 

[Really]

In early achievement years, I framed the ribbons for her. Later, the metals end up on the curtain rods. Trophies and plagues are on the bookshelves for now. I also frame her competition leotards.
View attachment 6178View attachment 6179View attachment 6180

Holy cow. That's a lot of medals and paraphernalia. How long has your kiddo been competing?

 

[Really]

I log all her scores in a spread sheet with placement and level. Dates, place. And anything work noting good and not so good. Like fall on BWO on beam. Timing on floor great.

All trophies and medals get labeled, name, meet, year, level, score, place. They actually are used for end of yearbook pictures and picture day is a bit chaotic (thats why we label)

Take a picture of the scorecards. After that they are all over the place her room, on our kitchen board, still in the car.
Pic with any awards at the meet
And can be made into a scrapbook/album
Current seasons awards get displayed.

Rest are hanging on her bed post, to eventually migrate to storage. And will be leaving the building when she does.

OMG, a spreadsheet would be too much for me! I have her videos in a nice file on my onedrive that family members can access. I write bloggy captions/comments on it mostly about how I was feeling while she was performing and just make note of OT deductions and the score there. I want to keep the scorecards in a binder in lieu of the spreadsheet.

 

[Really]

I display her current year medals on a medal hanger. One hook for each meet. It's really fun for her to fill it up as the year progresses. Then, after the season is over, I tie the medals for each meet in a semi-loose knot to keep them together and then put each meet's medals in a ziploc. I then put the medals, the meet programs, judges score cards and her USAG magazines in a 12x12 archival box that I get at Hobby Lobby. There's a spot on the front to put a label for the year.

Trophies go on shelves in her room.

Heh, and I love how easy it is to just hand those boxes for her to take with her when she moves out of the house! Should I do the awardkeeper 1canadiangymmom recommended, or this strategy? Decisions, decisions...

 

[Really]

DD was given something that looks like this:
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It's great for medals since there are a ton of pegs. For us, each peg is one meet.

However, I need a place to show off pics and awards that are not medals. I'll probably have to buy picture frames.....but I hate decorating!

I hate decorating too. I hate clutter even more, which is why I feel the need to come up with a plan BEFORE I'm overwhelmed by her gymnastics stuff!

 

[BachFlyer]

Curtain rod works great and can hold TONS of ribbons and medals.

This is what we use, too. My DD writes the scores and placement on the back but only for state meet and above medals.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

OMG, a spreadsheet would be too much for me! I have her videos in a nice file on my onedrive that family members can access. I write bloggy captions/comments on it mostly about how I was feeling while she was performing and just make note of OT deductions and the score there. I want to keep the scorecards in a binder in lieu of the spreadsheet.

Spreadsheet took about 15 mins to set up and takes about a minute a meet. Makes it easy to get her best scores for end of year plaque and yearbook. Data gets backed up along with the rest of my digital stuff and takes up no physical space.
Videos get renamed with year, month,meet, level, event, score, so
16 02 xyz L4 Floor 92
Easy Peasy

But then I don't keep much of her schoolwork either. Any thing with a handprint or footprint gets physically saved along with cool, larger art pieces/work. A couple key pieces of her writing through out the year. Rest I take photos of or scan and originals off to recycling. If it's really special to her she has a binder to keep stuff in.

 

[mommyof1]

Tinker Bell is one season into competition. She manages to lose half of her achievement ribbons on the way home from each meet. I am keeping the scorecards to put in her scrapbook at the end of the season along with any surviving ribbons. I have been putting a piece of masking tape on the back of each medal and labeling it with the date, level, meet name, event, place, and the total number of kids in the age group because 4th place is more meaningful with an n of 20 than an n of 8.

The medals live in a box. Despite my aversion to clutter, I wanted to put up a curtain rod to display the medals, but daddy thought it would put too much emphasis on placement so into the box they go.

 

[mommyof1]

P.S.: Scrapbooking is a fair amount of work, but it's a fun mother-daughter activity and I've found that I much prefer keeping a just few of Tink's mementos in a scrapbook to keeping everything she's ever collected in a box. As KonMari might say, a messy, disorganized box of old scorecards and concert programs does not "spark joy," but for me a cute, well-organized scrapbook does. Sometimes I actually find myself paging through Tink's old scrapbooks, whereas I would never bother to look at the stuff if I kept it in a box.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

P.S.: Scrapbooking is a fair amount of work, but it's a fun mother-daughter activity and I've found that I much prefer keeping a just few of Tink's mementos in a scrapbook to keeping everything she's ever collected in a box. As KonMari might say, a messy, disorganized box of old scorecards and concert programs does not "spark joy," but for me a cute, well-organized scrapbook does. Sometimes I actually find myself paging through Tink's old scrapbooks, whereas I would never bother to look at the stuff if I kept it in a box.

Yep and if you take pics you can make a digital book pretty easily on sites like Shutterfly.

 

[bogwoppit]

I am always gobsmacked at how many medals you get in the US. Here with large groups of 30+ and only top 3 getting medals, storing them was not a huge issue. Now they are in a cardboard box in the basement!!

 

[Really]

Spreadsheet took about 15 mins to set up and takes about a minute a meet. Makes it easy to get her best scores for end of year plaque and yearbook. Data gets backed up along with the rest of my digital stuff and takes up no physical space.
Videos get renamed with year, month,meet, level, event, score, so
16 02 xyz L4 Floor 92
Easy Peasy

But then I don't keep much of her schoolwork either. Any thing with a handprint or footprint gets physically saved along with cool, larger art pieces/work. A couple key pieces of her writing through out the year. Rest I take photos of or scan and originals off to recycling. If it's really special to her she has a binder to keep stuff in.

I WISH DD would let me recycle her stuff. Unfortunately she fishes that stuff out of the recycling and lets me have it if she catches me trying to get rid of stuff.

 

[Really]

I am always gobsmacked at how many medals you get in the US. Here with large groups of 30+ and only top 3 getting medals, storing them was not a huge issue. Now they are in a cardboard box in the basement!!

No kidding! They give medals all the way down to 9th place at the meets DD has been in this year, and then have like 4 or 5 different age groups. Basically, it translates to a "medal" for every meet for every participant. I think it's ridiculous. I mean, the ribbons are for participation, but the medals ought to mean something.

 

[Really]

Tinker Bell is one season into competition. She manages to lose half of her achievement ribbons on the way home from each meet. I am keeping the scorecards to put in her scrapbook at the end of the season along with any surviving ribbons. I have been putting a piece of masking tape on the back of each medal and labeling it with the date, level, meet name, event, place, and the total number of kids in the age group because 4th place is more meaningful with an n of 20 than an n of 8.

The medals live in a box. Despite my aversion to clutter, I wanted to put up a curtain rod to display the medals, but daddy thought it would put too much emphasis on placement so into the box they go.

That is a good point of Mr. Mommyof1! Displaying the medals does put emphasis on the placement.

 

[txgymfan]

That is a good point of Mr. Mommyof1! Displaying the medals does put emphasis on the placement.

I think for most kids medals represent an activity that consumes much of their lives. With placement medals going so low, most would be memorabilia with a select few being special. The beam medal that followed a bunch of falls, first AA first place, state or regional medals, etc.

 

[MILgymFAM]

I think the medal displays are an emphasis on memories not placements. Most meets my DD has attended have had placements for half plus one. So, yeah a lot of girls are getting medals, but a lot aren't too. At meets where my DD gets medals, she is so excited to have them and display them- whether for 3rd place (highest she's ever placed) or ninth (lowest place they've gone to that she got a medal for). When she is on the wrong side of half, she's still excited to have memorabilia. She displays the score cards or programs. She also has a memory book where she records the funniest, most exciting, most challenging part of each meet. That book doesn't even contain scores, just specifics and feelings. Long story short, you can appreciate the medals and not be putting an emphasis on placements.

 

[skschlag]

I agree. My ds has a curtain rod under his window with all of his medals on it. He has his favorites. There might be a couple tied to placement, such as his first medal, his first 1st place, Regional champ, but most are tied to memories or they are just cool (like the Whitlow medals). In reality, they are just a decoration of a huge part of his life. he never puts any emphasis on placements.