Hiiiiii YAH!

My 6-year-old daughter recently earned her Yellow belt in taekwondoe, but it was not an easy road. Despite acing the test, when it came time to break a board with a kick (Yep- BREAK a real piece of wood!) she wouldn't kick hard enough to do it. The mental challenge of mind over matter really hit her. We spent a week practicing and fretting about the need to overcome this hurdle to make it to the next level.

When she finally broke the board, the room broke out in cheers. I must admit my cheer was a little too loud and obnoxious- I gotta work on that! But, it was a true testament to her ability to put mind over matter. So, when it came time to scrapbook the page. I wanted it to be special. No store bought embellishment here. Handmade all the way.

I took a piece of white paper and sketched out what I wanted the uniform shirt to look like. Admittedly, I'm not the best artist- but I felt my sketch was alright. Then I cut out the piece. I thought it looked pretty good. Then I decided to create a lapel with two extra pieces of paper. It needed to have some stitching then. So, I gathered some embroidery string and a needle. You can sew paper pretty easily- just be sure not to get too close to the edges. I learned the hard way!

The final piece to the puzzle was the belt. I only had yellow ribbon. So I custom made it to look like her real belt. After tying the belt around the waste (like it's supposed to be tied for class- yes, a little obsessive) I cut little pieces of white paper and glued them down.

I really like the final product. I hope she likes that I marked this occasion in a special handmade kind of way. What do you think?