And The Award Goes To....

Girl Scouts can earn a variety of badges throughout the year.  Let me say that another way.  The girls can earn A LOT of badges.  Seriously, there is a badge for everything.  Picked up trash at the park?  There’s a badge for that?  Helped at a bake sale?  There’s a badge for that.  Went Christmas caroling at the retirement home?  There’s a badge for that.  These types of badges are called “Fun Badges”, and they are placed on the back of a girls vest.  Some troops opt to not earn these types of badges because of the expense. 

Not our troop!  The girls love getting these types of badges.  They proudly wear them on their vests, and some have earned so many that they ran out of room and put them on their bags.  These badges act as a walking history of the troop.

I had a good amount to hand out at our last meeting, and wanted to do something a little more than just throwing them in a sandwich bag and handing them over.  Search Pinterest (where else!), and you will find a ton of ways to distribute badges.  Some troops go above and beyond what I can even imagine!  I had seen these ribbon awards on several boards, and thought they were cute.  Here’s how I did it:

Gather up the following:

• Cupcake liner (I found that the aluminum foil ones are best)
• 1” wide grosgrain ribbon
• Glue
• Cardstock
• Safety Pin

Flatten the cupcake liner with your hand so it will fan out into a circle.  You can stop there, or you can put the liners between the pages of a thick book, which is what I did.  This will really help you to flatten them.

Using the scientific “Eyeball Method”, determine the length of ribbon needed.  This is based on the amount of badges per girl.  Some girls will have longer ribbons than others.  Each award requires two strips of ribbon.

Put a little bit of hot glue on the back of the badge, and place on the ribbon.  Don’t worry about the badges getting stuck to the ribbon.  You are using such a small amount that it will be easy to pull them off.

Glue the ribbon to the back of the cupcake liner.

Add a little something to the middle of the cupcake liner – the sky is the limit.  You can cut a piece of card stock into a circle, write the scout’s name on it, and then glue to the middle of the liner.  I had these cute little circles in my craft stock, and they worked perfectly.

I put a safety pin on each award, which allowed me to pin the awards to the girls at the meeting. 

This is a great idea for the following reasons:

1. The girls immediately pinned the awards to their shirts at the meeting.  I think they were into it, which is always a good thing.
2. Having the award ribbons pinned to the girls ensured that the badges made their way home.  I always fear that badges get lost.
3. The craft itself cost me $0 to make, as I had all of the supplies on hand. 

Until next time…..