Summer Guiding Projects

** This Post was Featured in the Girl Guides of Canada Blog on Sept 1st 2016!
 https://girlguidescanblog.ca/2016/09/01/summer-guiding-projects/ 

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 fully 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. Its an amazing thing.

This summer my family is back out in New Brunswick visiting our family cottages. We got to spend 3 full weeks out here this year so in 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 new Sparks units in the coming year or making things for them to use during our meetings. Below i've posted pictures of my efforts that will hopefully inspire some of you to use your crafting skills and make something beautiful. If you want to complete any of the projects below and are needing some help or explanations please feel free to drop me an email. 

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. 

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 the dolls going home are named Cindy and Brooke. The girls LOVE taking the dolls home and are so eager to share what they had done at home with the visiting dolls. These are our new journals that will go home in a bag with both our unit's dolls, a tent and a sleeping bag. Sometimes the girls make different outfits or jewelry for the dolls and they always come back with new and interesting stories to tell. 

Next up we have a super cool project that i saw on Facebook from a guider in - I believe it was Alberta. These are first aid kids 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 for it!


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 then i thought they would going in. I was able to paint a Spark, Brownie, Guide, Pathfinder, Ranger and a leader. My hope is to make more in the future that have vintage uniforms on them (Brownie dress with the dues pouch anyone?) but for the moment i'm over painting these little things. I am so happy with how they turned out!