Laura Vegas

This is new. I created a project just for fun. Not because I had to or because anyone told me too. It was created just because I wanted too. I really should do this more often. If only I had more hours in my days! Of course, this project has a story behind it, and the story is what inspired me to create the simple project. But if you don't care about the story (I won't be offended, as I know some only want to see projects ;)), just scroll down a ways.

This past Saturday, we had a soccer game worth sharing about. We have a U-19 team of 16 players, but on Saturday we only had 10 players show up for the game. A few we knew weren’t coming and a few we found out weren’t coming at the last minute. Meaning, we found out when they didn't show up to warm up. We play with 11 players on the field, so we knew it would be asking a lot of the 10 that did show up. Our games are 80 minutes long (40 min halves), so that’s rough with no subs. Especially when we have 2 girls with really bad asthma, who definitely need those breaks during the game when they’re having a hard time. The coaches gave those 2 girls strict instructions to come out the second they had any problems breathing. No questions asked.

We put those 10 players on the field to start the game,
but we had one go down with a bad injury about 15 minutes in. We were playing
in the next city over from us, and they are not known for their fields, to say
the least. This player stepped in a hole and did something to her knee, ending
with her getting carried off the field by the coach and the referee. She felt so bad, and kept trying to convince the coaches she could go back in, but they weren't having it. Since this put us down to just 9 players on the field, in a show of good sportsmanship,
the other team did remove one of their players (but still had 10 out there). Another
20 minutes or so in, we had another player go down. She has asthma, which is
what I thought the problem was, but it was actually her ankle (that she was
already having issues with) that took a good hit. We finished out that first
half with 8 players on the field, and were up 2-0. 

We started the second half with our same 8 players, and
the 2 injured on the sideline, knowing that one of those 8 players had to leave
halfway into the half. These girls were playing their hearts out and giving it
their all. Which is why I knew it was only a matter of time before Alyssa had
issues with her asthma. And about 25 minutes in (as we were playing with only 7
players), Alyssa went down hard with an asthma attack. It was bad. We knew she
was done for the day, even though she kept saying she had to stay in. This meant
we were down to just 6 players (that includes the goalie), and you’re required
to have 7 players on the field to play. 

With only 15 minutes left in our 80 minute game, we
weren’t ready to just give up. Our team had worked too hard to just walk away
from a game we were dominating, even with less players. We were also finally playing a team from our own city, as we had been up against teams from the opposing city for the last 5 weeks, and the girls had been looking forward to it. And this other team came in undefeated (we've only lost 1 game). The player with the
injured knee said she would go out on the field, just to be a body. After being
given strict instructions to not move at all, and to literally just stand there,
she slowly made her way onto the field, as Coach Joe was carrying Alyssa off
the field. Our injured player did exactly as she was told, and stood in one
spot like a statue. 

So the other 6 players (with one in the goal) kept the
game going for another 15 minutes. We were strictly playing defense. But as you
defend your goal, you do end up kicking the ball to the other side of the
field, so then Sarah had to hightail it back to her forward position, as she’s
one of our faster runners and our main scorer. The other team did finally score
against us in the last few minutes. But Sarah took it right back and scored
another goal. With their 10 players to our 6 players. We ended up winning the
game 3-1. It was really awesome to watch our 10 players come together like
that. They all gave 200% of themselves and worked their butts off during that
game. They left that field exhausted, beat up, and worn down. But I think we
all left that field feeling very proud too! 

For the rest of the weekend, I kept thinking about how those 10 players deserved a little something special. And I knew I wanted to put something together, as I'm the team parent. It would have been simple to buy some clear cellophane bags to fill with goodies. But I'm a crafty person, and I always prefer to make something if I can.

I picked out a treat box from the Silhouette library. It's a little flap box that I've used before. I decided to cut them all from kraft cardstock, as I have a ton of it in my stash (and I very rarely use kraft). I sized each box to the largest I could get it out of a 12×12 sheet of paper. I also added a few stars to the part that would show on the front, to create some little star cut-outs. After each one cut, I lightly misted them with some purple spray mist.

I was going to go with "you're awesome" for the front of the box, but in sizing the word "awesome" to fit, it was going to be too small to cut well. I have had issues with certain cursive words not cutting as well when I try and make them too tiny. So instead, I used this "you rock", which was taken from the phrase "you rock my world". I cut these all from one sheet of black cardstock.

I added the sentiments to the box templates before assembling the boxes. It's a lot easier to do this step first, since you can really push down on things to make sure they're adhered really well. I also added a silver brad to the hole in the middle part of the front piece, since it's harder to add those on once the boxes are assembled.

Then I went about assembling the boxes. I won't lie. I found this step to be the most annoying. No real reason. They're easy enough to do. Just make all the folds to get the shape, and adhere a few pieces together to get them to hold. But it still annoyed me. These boxes, once assembled, aren't huge. They're about 4 inches tall.

I added a second silver brad to the flap piece, and then tied them to each other with some purple/white twine to hold them shut. Our team color is purple, hence the purple misting and twine.

I put some black crepe paper in the bottom of each box, before filling them up with goodies. So on some of the boxes, that black showed thru the cut-out stars. But on most of them, you could see a little silver peek at what was inside.

Hershey's Kisses was my candy of choice! Everyone loves chocolate! I filled up those 10 boxes with chocolate and sent them off with Joe to hand out to the girls at practice on Tuesday. Just a little something-something to let them know how much we think they rock!!!