I am a crafter. In the various areas of Girl Guide programming (and life in general), I have always excelled in the area of crafts, art and nifty things you can make. While this is a great skill to have, I have yet to find a full-time job where being excellently talented with sequins and immune to hot glue gun burns is a pre-requisite. Therefore, most of my crafting is reserved for Girl Guides and summer holidays where I can really dive in and go crazy with bits and bobs – only coming out of the craft room for food and sleep. It’s an amazing thing.
This summer my family is back out in New Brunswick visiting our family cottages. We got to spend three full weeks out here this year, so between book reading and trips to the beach, I’ve been crafting up a storm. Much of this time has been spent trying out projects I want to do with my Brownie and Spark units in the coming year or making things for them to use during our meetings. Below are pictures of my efforts that will hopefully inspire some of you to use your crafting skills and make something beautiful.
This is a special box that is going to go under my unit’s Brownie Toadstool. Each of the fairy circles have their own little treasure box (with their attendance and dues pouch in them) that stays in their circle corner. Once the groups are called to their fairy circle, the circle leader will bring their dues pouch and it will go into the box under the toadstool after they do their dance.
Next up we have a super cool project that I discovered online from another Guider – first-aid kits made out of pot holders! I’m planning on making these with my Brownies later on in the year to work on their Key to the Arts and Key to Camping. I’ve sewn the plastic bags to the ribbon with one set of stitches and then the plan is to teach the girls how to use the sewing machine to sew the bags into the potholder by placing a row of stitches on either side to lock everything in place. Then they will sew the button on the back for the loop to go through. I’m super excited to try this activity with the girls.
In our units (Brownies and Sparks) we have dolls that go home with one girl each week. In Sparks we have the girls write down/draw pictures of anything fun they did with the doll and in Brownies we ask them to draw or write about a good turn that they did that week to help their families. In Sparks, our doll is named Crystal and in Brownies, they are named Cindy and Brooke. The girls LOVE taking the dolls home and are so eager to share what they did at home with the visiting dolls. Sometimes the girls make different outfits or jewelry for the dolls and they always come back with new and interesting stories to tell. These are our new journals that will go home in a bag with both our units’ dolls.
Last but certainly not least, I have to present my Guiding peg dolls! These were a very big labour of love because they took so much longer to finish than I thought they would going in.
I was able to paint a Spark, Brownie, Guide, Pathfinder, Ranger and a Guider. My hope is to make more in the future that have vintage uniforms on them (Brownie dress with the dues pouch anyone?). I am so happy with how they turned out!
Guest post by Rebecca Sadler. Rebecca is a Brownie and Sparks Guider in Toronto, and loves sharing programming and crafting ideas on her blog, Brown Owl’s Adventures in Guiding, where this post originally appeared.
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