Shadow Boxes

Part of growing up is having one's parents pack up their childhood things and pass them along to take up residence in one's own basement. This happened with my Hubby's folks a few months ago and his stuff took up residence in the extra bedroom.

Currently, that bedroom is transitioning into a baby room, so we've been sorting through all the miscellaneous junk that has accumulated over the last year or so that we've lived here. Part of that sorting included the box of Boy Scout stuff that my Hubby earned way back when.

The difficulty of these bits of childhood memorabilia is choosing what's important enough to keep and what can be tossed... but earning merit badges all the way up to the Eagle Scout Award is an impressive achievement, well worth keeping. But do we need another box? Ultimately, I decided no. No more boxes.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I came up with the perfect solution: I gathered up all his Scouting stuff and assembled it into a display for a shadow box, wrapped it up and gifted it to him for his birthday.

Now it's hanging on our wall and we are encumbered by one less box. Woo!

This whole exercise has inspired me go through my own boxes and see what can be done to minimize the clutter.

Way back in high school, I was pretty active with choir and participated every year in Solo and Ensemble. My high school kept a record of who participated by putting up our names on the choir room wall coupled with numbers indicating how often they went to State. It's been a few years since I've been back to see that choir room wall and I don't actually remember what the grand total was for me, but I'm pretty sure I was tied with the school record for number of visits to State.. I was quite proud of myself!

So, for each song we participated in at District (solo, duet, ensemble, etc.) we would get a medal. If we went on to sing at State, we'd get another medal. After 4 years with multiple entries each year, with visits to State as well, I've accumulated a Solo and Ensemble medal or two.

These medals have caused a similar dilemma as my Hubby's scouting stuff... too cool to toss, but what to do with them?? They have lived in a plastic baggy, in a box in various basements, pretty much since I graduated from high school. However, after the Scouting shadow box success, I've been inspired to create another for my Solo and Ensemble medals.

So much better than life in a box. Why haven't I ever made any of these before??