JBS Summer Games - Badminton

Oh those summer games!  There are so many ways to be inspired!  I just LOVED the inspirational stories and interviews NBC showed about the athletes!

I was inspired to create a layout about my son and his tiny, but significant to me, "career" in club badminton.  Dear son is an athletic kid.  He loves and gets involved with all sports. One day he picked up a badminton racquet in gym and he was hooked with quite a competitive feel for the game.  One spring afternoon, playing in someone's yard, he was hit by the birdie smack in the eye.  A ripped pupil, torn retina, two surgeries, and 8 weeks out of school later his 20/15 vision in his left eye was restored to "decent" vision with correction.  But the most unbelievable part?  His brother sustained a similar accident and surgery standing in a crowd on the playground 15 months earlier.

He could not give up his athletics.  There was NO way he was going to let this happen. After many, many discussions with many, many doctors he still plays his many games.  Not shown in this photo, but a very necessary part of his games these days is eye protection!

His gym teacher advised him to go on to competitive travel teams in the area.  But baseball was his game.  So badminton remained his club sport, but he and his doubles partner made quite a name for themselves.  Students and graduating alumni heard of their undefeated record and came into the gym after school just to challenge and try to beat them.  It never happened. So this kid was in fact undefeated.  In more ways than one, I think.

 I had asked him "Were you 100% absolutely undefeated."  And he said, "Well mom, that's what undefeated means." And that's how the title came to be.  100% Absolutely Undefeated.

I used patterned cardstock from Wren.  I adore Wren.  It's great for sports.  It's great for beach. It's great for those general no-theme-type layouts.  Did I say I adore Wren.  (i do)  The letter stickers are the new Skinny Alpha Stickers in gray.  Coming soon. They are the perfect size and come in perfect colors. You'll love them. The embellishments are all JBS: Doily Flowers, Rhinestone Decorative Brads

I wanted to put a birdie (shuttlecock) icon on the layout somehow, but I couldn't find exactly what I had in mind. So I created my own from a "feathered arrow" icon in PSE and used my Silhouette to cut it.

The delicate "feathers" can be tricky to remove in one piece, but I like the imperfect look.

This digital cut file can be used as a snowflake, too couldn't it?  If you want the .svg file I made you can download it here:  Birdie Feathers SVG

I hope you're having a blast playing our Summer Games!

Summer Games info here

Swimming Medley Relay summary here