New Years Eve Bowling

We celebrated the coming year with a bowling Party.  I got the girls 'Happy New Year' Headbands and noisemakers, but the alley was so noisy that we certainly didn't need those! They had a great night eating pizza and drinking soda and pretending to bowl.

Please also enjoy the faux 'professional bowling stance' pics I took of a few of the 'pose-able' girls...unfortunately, not all of the girls were agreeable to pose, so I only took a couple, about 6 of the 17...so I guess, not everyone will get a picture with their group shot...








The only thing that I would have preferred would be that they wore the expensive sweatshirts (or t-shirts) so that we could look like an actual group...*sigh* Instead, everyone decided to wear whatever they thought best, and we looked like a mishmash...I guess I'll have to start bribing them

At least they had fun.

Holiday Party

After much planning , our Holiday Party has finally come and gone! All I can say is 'whew!'

I really do need to get more parent volunteers, I feel bad for the children forced to miss events because they're off manning an activity. That be said, thanks to my child-photographer who took an individual picture of every girl at the party so that they could have a keepsake.

thanks, lady!

Overall, the girls (and 1 boy) enjoyed themselves...

They made ornaments; squeezing paint into glass balls and turning them upside down to drain the excess paint. After empty; the caps were replaced and ribbons and hooks attached.

Voila!

A finished ornament! A great addition to any tree!

They also made mats for Kwanzaa, by weaving red and green strips of paper into a sheet a black. A simple project to celebrate the season

The girls also colored icing and decorated gingerbread cookies. I was so set on traditional icing colors; green, red, white, maybe blue...but the moms got a hold of my gel colors and let the girls go to town with the colors choices, and I'm glad they did. 

The pink was adorable, as was the yellow, and maybe even the brown pants I saw one wearing!

and when it was all said and done, they ate them!

Overall, not a bad night, but I could not have done it without the parent volunteers who mixed icing and glued pictures; served pasta and cut paper!

So late with this!

I have not been posting as much as I should be! I am a bad leader! This year I have 3 troops and most of a full time job. I am also trying out side jobs...(getting my side hustle on), as well as working on my novel. Sounds like a lot, but I can do more! (I know I can!)

For the most up-to-date information; please visit the girls at our facebook page , that's where I put all of my successes. This is where I put all of my hopes and the disappointment when it doesn't work (Moms don't need to see that)

It's been a wild ride so far, I have a co-leader and then I don't, then I find a new one, who always says she can't make it last minute ...but here's hoping we have a working group now. There are a lot of new girls, the troop is on a complete overhaul, but it's great! I love new girls!

I'm currently planning a Scavenger Hunt to Manhattan, the American Museum of Natural History and am trying to get a grasp of exactly how many girls and adults will be going. We have two complete teams arranged so far:

Blue team

Purple team

The only thing is arranging moms to lead the teams, and convincing them to give up their daughters for the afternoon. (At  some point, the girls will want to be without their moms,and this seems like a good opportunity) I myself will not have a group as I made the questions and have been all over the site gathering information :(

The plan is to get the girls to take pictures with certain items in the museum (so each team needs to have a digital camera) and find out information on others. The first team that arrives back with everything complete will win a pack of movie tickets. I'm thinking about offering another group of tickets for best picture because realistically, I want them to go in there and get great pictures...so I bribe them.

Fingers crossed that this goes well

Corn Maze

Today we travelled to the end of the island again to visit a corn maze. We tried a corn maze last year, but the corn was barely taller than my head, and therefore non satisfactory! lol..This year we went to a different farm that was recommended by another leader; this one larger, and farther away! 


Four girls came out today (Really need to figure out ways to get more girls to go on trips) but these four had a great time. For $10 per person, we were able to go through the 3 different mazes, and a hay ride.

Diagram of the 3 corn mazes

In an effort to kill some time I allowed the girls to browse through the items for sale, basically gourds and pumpkins, a few squashes, nothing too exciting for them to ask for....

..actually, most of the items looked a little....diseased, although I'm sure that's the way they're supposed to look. (The visual status kept me away.)

We took a lot of group pictures ( I needed to update the picture for my facebook page!) and the girls got along really well with each other. For the most part they are not in troops together, so it was nice to see them get along with girls they're not too familiar with

I also took a bunch of individual shots, and will be giving the four girls an 5x7 (and maybe wallets) of their individual pics, and a 4x6 group shot. I figure if the other girls see what they missed out on, they'll want to go on a trip. These pictures will be handed out during meetings!

Troop 923 -Patch work

We had the opportunity to create individualized business cards while working on a patch. The girls thought it was all a joke when I asked them to design a card that they could hand out now. (Most of them used fake numbers and then 'corrected' their cards)

All of the girls were asked to take a standard sheet of paper and design a business card for themselves:

Handmade design

Computerized Version

Overall the girls really enjoyed the project, and the best thing, it was free! Made completely with products already owned!

Pajama Party

Our Pajama Party went effortlessly, but I unfortunately do not have any pictures as my disc was occupied in the printer making cards for the girls that attended. I didn't want to leave anyone hanging...

This photo wins for best of the evening!

Inspired?

I saw this picture online today while researching decorations for the upcoming PJ party

...and I need one!

etsy.com fabricorfiction $32

Of course, most people would fork over the requested $32, but I have this alphabet grosgrain ribbon I purchased a year ago, just waiting for the right opportunity, and this is it! I'm off to raid my fabric stash for child friendly basic patterns, and hopefully - with my contact paper to make it less destructible- we shall soon have a banner to hang across this large room with pillars.

Not the best picture, and, yes, I am that childish!

I'll keep you all posted!








Here's the finished product, I'll be adding a title as well:

Pillowcase Giveaway

       Well it's time for our first event of the school year, a PJ party this weekend. All girls (moms) who registered their daughters on our facebook fan page a week before the party are to recieve a pillowcase. Originally, the thought was to purchase bulk pillowcases that we could have the t-shirt logo screen printed onto; but as always, situations come up that force you to switch your plans - this situation, the website where I found reasonably priced pillowcases was referred to by Martha Stewart who apparently had a PJ party on a recent show. Long story short, the pillowcases are now backordered.
       I then went on to purchase pillow shams from a discount store, which were way to thin and could not be loaded onto the screenprinting machine (Does anyone need 13 thin green pillow shams?)

      These events had led to one possible solution....break out the sewing machine and create my own pillows! I found some great fabric at a local WalMart (not as easy as it sounds, considering the fabric sections are a dying breed in this area)

Girl Scout themed fabric $4 a yard

     The fabric has great sayings which scream girl scouts, and makes for a good pillowcase border.....and now the steps to make pillowcases:

A yard of solid fabric halved - about 24x36"(creates two pillowcases)

A patterned fabric -10x36"

thread

basic sewing skills

Here are the solid and patterned fabrics lying together:

Take the solid fabric and roll it up (leave a small piece exposed to attached)

Pin the patterned fabric, right sides together, with the solid rolled up inside and sew along the open seam.

Pull the solid fabric from inside the roll 

Smooth the fabric out and pin right sides together. (You will have a  pillowcase border without an exposed seam.)

Sew along the open edges and flip the pillowcase inside out.

This entirely optional, but I like to sew along the border just inside the patterned fabric for a little added stability.

Trim the thread and your all set!

Cost is about $2.50 a girl and more special than could be bought!

Homecoming Parade

     Just in time for Homecoming, we got our sweatshirts and finished our hairbows!

      The day ended up being about 70 degrees which is probably 10-15 degrees warmer than normal for October in our area (did I mention my ability to pick events on hot days?), and the fact that we began our marching around the corner from the high school, did not guarantee a short trip....we walked away from the field and for about 3 miles - so the town could see us.

    But we were able to pass lots of girls along the way and hand out invites to the pajama party. The girls also got to practice their walking and waving. A necessary evil in the lives of Princesses : )

Creating hairbows

I was able to get pictures of the girls making their hairbows this evening. So I can show, step by step, how it's done. It's basic, but will require a little tweaking to get the desired side to face forward. 

Materials needed:

Large Main Grosgrain Color 1 1/2" (Green)

Medium Contrasting Grosgrain Color 7/8"(White)

Medium Sheer Color 7/8" (White)

Small Complimentary Color 1/2" (Green)

Small Complimentary Color 1/2" (Grey)

Thin Contrasting Color 1/8" (White)

Ponytail Holder

Hot Glue Gun

Scissors

Button

Rhinestone

We began with three ribbons, a large green grosgrain (about 1 1/2 inches), a white 7/8 inch grosgrain, and a sheer white all the same length (26"-30"). The ribbons are stacked in that order, with green being on the bottom.

Then we added 6 other ribbons. Our sweatshirts are grey and green, so the next ribbons are green, grey and white. These are just background ribbons, and are about 12 inches, 2 of each color. 

Those get stacked in the middle of the large ribbons, as if forming a plus sign.

Then the girls worked in pairs. One girl held the edges of the shorter ribbons, while the other tied a simple knot. The girl were careful to twist the ribbons as they tied to keep the sheer ribbon on top

The end result is a strip of ribbon, which the girls slid a ponytail holder onto

The girls the take the two sides of the Large Green and white and tie a simple bow; the same as when you learn the bunny-ear method of tying shoes

After a little pulling, twisting and turning, you get a cute little bow. 

No exaggeration, this requires a LOT of patience! This project filled our 1 1/2 hour meeting.

Once the bow looks the way you want it to, you can use hot glue to add the button ....

...and rhinestone. Completely not necessary, but it gives a little sparkle to the project.

The girls then trimmed the end of the larger ribbons to have pointed edges.

These are going to look great at the parade!