Decorating your Disability!!

                When I was in high school, my best friend tore her ACL and had to wear a knee brace before, and for quite a while after, her surgery. She put up with that brace pretty well and managed to find ways to embrace it, despite its burden at times and the negative attention it drew to her leg. My friend was quite a fashionista, however, and found a way to spice up her leg brace. She decided to get several different kinds of fake gems at Wal-Mart and put Velcro on the back of them. She would them stick them to the material part of the cast and also put areas of Velcro on parts of the metal so they could stick around the outsides of the brace. Everyone thought this was so cool and, “so her.” Soon enough, people would ask to decorate her cast and each day someone different would make a different pattern or color scheme to stick to her cast to make it look unique. My friend’s innovative decorating of her brace years ago inspired me when I was thinking of ideas for my blog. What if people decorated any kind of cast, brace, prosthetic limb or wheel chair?

                I think that equipment decorating would be a fun and creative thing to do to spice up any adaptive equipment people may need to use in their everyday life! Like my friend’s leg brace, people could make and put jewels, material or other craft supplies on practically anything. I have seen before people creating designs up crutches using colored duck tape or people pinning pins on neck braces. Therefore, an event or competition could be created to allow people to come and spice up their equipment and a fashion show could be held at the end for everyone to model their creations. There could also be prizes given away such as most creative, best theme, or most colorful.

                Several different materials could be used at an event like this, ranging from craft supplies such as material scraps, jewels or beads, or even everyday objects such as tin foil, duck tape or toilet paper rolls. Different age groups could participate or you could have different events for different age groups, but children and adolescents would probably enjoy crafts and a simple activity such as this the most, maybe even geriatrics. Anyone could come or participate, however, and supervision of some sort would probably be needed to make sure everything runs smoothly and there is assistance available for anything if needed. Safety precautions should be considered when dealing with any craft materials such as scissors or toxic substances such as some glues and spray paints. Children or people with severe disabilities may want assistance if needed when participating. In the end, a get together like this would be fun and creative and give people with adaptive equipment for their disabilit a chance to show it off and be proud of what they wear each day!