Wigs For Kids

Today my Little Brownie got a haircut. We struggle daily over the rats nest that her hair becomes when she forgets to brush it many times a day. I have had to keep her hair in a braid to save my sanity, and I feel cruel when I have to threaten her to get her to let me brush it. She has wanted to cut it short for a while, so I told her as soon as it was at least an extra 12" we could take her to donate it to Wigs for Kids. She was thrilled with this idea and fascinated that it would go to help a child that lost their hair from chemo or many other health problems. She was very happy to wait for the length and Spring to arrive, but asks me to measure it occasionally.

Before

So with today being the first day of our Spring Break we went to the local beauty college and took the plunge! The students there doted on my little brownie and made sure she felt special! Apparently there aren't many people that do this at this particular location, so it was a new experience for this student - she even got an extra grade!

Pic with student stylist

I printed the card before I went because I am a picture hound (mad scrapbooker). We are both thrilled with the new look and my little brownie loves not having to deal with the snarly hair.

Wouldn't it be cool if the program sent a picture of the finished wig?

There was a part at the bottom of the form they gave me to fill out that if the donor was a Girl Scout you could get a patch for an extra $3. I had already ordered the patch that morning (shown above) from Advantage Emblem for $1.69 because with their March Madness sale I got free shipping.

So we are taking a much needed break from (most) things. I am trying to catch up on adult stuff and getting the house spring cleaned as well as resting up for the big cookie drop and sort and deliver madness!

Until next time!

How we spent Girl Scout Week 2016

Girl Scout Week is celebrated each March, starting with Girl Scout Sunday and ending with Girl Scout Sabbath on a Saturday, and it always includes Girl Scouts' Birthday, March 12.

My Little Brownie spent the week earning the Girl Scout Week Patch.


March 6, 2016 - Day 1: Girl Scout Sunday

The requirements to choose from for day one:

____ Think of three different ways you can serve God or your country. Do one of them.

____ Attend a religious service AND wear your Girl Scout vest/ sash.

____ Say or sing grace at a meal.

  X    Do a good deed for someone.

____ Spend 20 minutes in quiet reflection.

My Little Brownie brought eggs around to a couple of the neighbors. With 9 laying hens, I had several dozen in the refrigerator. Helped them, helped me! She actually went out and collected the eggs that morning without me having to ask 3 times :)

We didn't go to church, so we wont get the Girl Scout Sunday patch, just the patch for Girl Scout Week.


March 7, 2016 - Day 2: Community Day


  X    Put some bird food outside for our feathered friends.

____ Help clean up an area in your community or at school.

____ Recycle as much as you can today.

____ Pick three toys donate to your organization of choice.

  X    Fly a flag in front of your home today

We filled up the bird seed and hummingbird feeders. I showed her how to make homemade hummingbird syrup: One cup boiled (NOT microwaved) and cooled water to 1/4 cup sugar. The hummingbirds don't show up in Arkansas until the first week of April generally, but since Spring is early this year we took a chance.


March 8, 2016 - Day 3: Spread The Cheer Day

____ Say “Hello” and smile to as many people as you can today.

____ Do something to help someone without being asked.

____ Visit with an elderly friend or family member.

____ Write a note to a family member or friend about how much you appreciate them and why.

  X     Learn to say "hello, good-bye, please and thank you" in another language.

Of course, my Little Brownie chose Mandarin, as Ni-Hao Kai Lan use to be one of her favorite shows. Thank you Google Translate! Not only did it give the Chinese (Mandarin) characters, but it showed how to spell it in English and had a sound button to hear the word spoken!

March 9, 2016 - Day 4: Health & Safety Day

  X    Do at least 20 minutes of exercise.

____ Discuss with an adult ways to handle stress

____ Check to see if your smoke detectors and fire extinguishers are working properly





____ Eat only healthy snacks today. Stay away from foods with high amounts of sugar and salt

  X    Learn some stretching exercises and do at least three of them.


I took advantage of this one to get the Dancer Badge knocked out as well.
I'm glad that warming up is the first step! These old bones wouldn't have been able to get through this badge without it!

For step 2: Try a new dance, we spent some time on YouTube learning some "new" moves for the 50's dance coming up on Saturday with our service unit. We tried out the Hand Jive, the Stroll, the Swing, the Mashed Potato, the Jitterbug (epic fail), and the Twist!

50's dance

Step 3 was interesting... We practiced curtsies, proper carriage in walking, and good standing posture. This made me remember when I was a kid and my mom showed me how to walk with a book on my head. I guess that was something they did when SHE was a kid. We had a blast with step 2 & 3 because we were also wearing our poodle skirts!

Step 4 was fun too. My Little Brownie made up a new dance using current and 50's moves together when I played disco music! (I couldn't help myself!) I wish I had that on video for posterity...

For step 5 - completed on March 12th- that was a gimme :) We went to the 50's dance and had fun! She was able to do the Hand Jive for the other scouts that were there!



I showed her how I change the batteries and check our smoke detectors and fire extinguisher on Sunday (today) when we set the clocks ahead, so I wasn't going to get technical on that one... That is also the day I change batteries on all my clocks. I didn't do it last night because she fell asleep on the way home from the dance and I wanted to let her help me do it.


March 10, 2016 - Day 5: Outdoor Day

____ Do a rubbing on a leaf, tree bark or any other thing in nature.

____ Take a scavenger hike. Find something in nature that starts with each letter of the alphabet.

  X    Plant a vegetable, flower or herb in a pot to enjoy.

____ Identify three different plants in your neighborhood.

____ Play games outside for at least 30 minutes.

We spent most of the morning getting my seeds started. I feel like I'm kind of late on that this year (for Arkansas), but if it's as wet this spring as it was last year, I guess it will work out OK. We planted cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, lettuce, cabbage... you get it. We also planted some herbs from seed. I was worried that she planted the seeds too deep, but I guess I shouldn't have -as of this morning some of them have already started to sprout! I hope she helps me get them into the garden when it's time. This activity also went with the current unit that she is studying in Science about life cycles.

March 11, 2016 - Day 6: Family & Friend Day

  X    Draw a picture of your family.

Our family living in
Minecraft world

____ Do something extra special for your family or a friend and leave them a note.

____ Make a friendship gift for someone special.

____ Be extra nice to your siblings. Do a good deed for them.

  X     Plan a route and take your family on an evening walk.

I have no explanation for the picture, but she used to be fixated on Monster High, so I'm just going to go with it... We also planned and took the evening walk around the neighborhood so that I wouldn't have to deal with the inner struggle of whether this picture counts towards the requirement.


March 12, 2016 - Day 7: Girl Scout 104th Birthday

____ Recite the Girl Scout Law to your family.

  X    Read or reread the Juliette Low story. (Here is a version for Daisies)

____ Plan something special for Leader Appreciation Day on April 22.

  X    Learn about when Girl Scouting first started.

____ Learn a new Girl Scout song and teach it to a friend.

Here is a great resource with Juliette Gordon Low games and crafts.

This week has been way crazier than I expected, and I am just exhausted. All of our "why didn't you tell us you were selling Girl Scout cookies" friends came out of the woodwork! We didn't even sit down and make the swaps for her pen pals like we had planned, but we did put together some for the 50's dance. These are mini 45 records cut out of a black plastic folder with a 1" hole punch, then green glitter paper punched with a 1/2" punch stuck to the center on each side. We took a regular hole punch to the center (I had to do that part), and scooped it up onto a safety pin. Even though we are the only ones to bring swaps to service unit events, they always go over well. There were a couple of daisies that said they didn't even know what swaps were. (I shake my head...) But the thing is, when you bring these to events, your daughter ends up speaking to every single girl there because they all want one!

Mission accomplished.

Troop leaders ask me in awe about my daughter's activities for scouting, and I'm sure it sounds like this is easier. Really, the only difference is that I don't have to deal with moms - wait, OK, this is easier...

My Little Brownie met her initial cookie sales goal. Mostly because we have to order our cookies by the case like the troops do. As an "Independent Girl Member" my daughter can't do booths unless we participate with a troop. Our service unit doesn't want us to tie up an official booth location for one girl, so we were told that we can set up "a stand" anywhere else. Whatever. It's still kind of a booth - right? I'm not going to over-think it... So worst case scenario is that I get stuck with 11 boxes of each kind - I am sooooo doing a "stand" this year!

So that pretty much caps off my week! I hope everyone enjoyed their Girl Scout Week festivities and are looking forward to cookie booths - if you haven't already done that.

Love,

One Tired Juliette Mom

Swap Banner & Computer Expert

This time of year is always so crazy. Cookie season is a couple of months of activities (and sales), Thinking Day, Girl Scout Week, the list goes on - and all of this starts before we are fully recovered from the holidays! The crafts never end :)

I have posted about the swaps that my daughter does with the Girl Scout Swaps group. The last one was World Thinking Day and we received ours back last Monday, but I haven't had a chance to do anything with them until this weekend.

This is what we got back! 100 swaps! We even got the one from the Juliette in California that my daughter writes to. What can I say, you already know that I am an enabler! But really, I'm so glad she joined - I love her being there too!

We did 2 countries/participants because there were 74 countries claimed and we wanted more than 50 of them. We ended up with 57 out of 74. And it was really fun, too.

And I finally ran up that swap banner I've been wanting. Maybe I should've made it bigger...

Before                                           After

My Little Brownie is planning on making a Girl Scout Birthday swap for her pen pals and I've been planning my next few weeks with her Girl Scout Journey. Over the last week she completed her Computer Expert badge, and we are brainstorming ideas for the project to earn her Take Action badge and complete the Journey. We've got it narrowed down to two...

Here is my latest scrapbook layout, though I still prefer the Project Life style, I'm giving this to My Little Brownie for her scrapbook. She loves Photoshop and she hovered over my shoulder while I made this. She helped me pick out the pictures and I let her move the elements around. They say a picture is worth a thousand words!

 


I'm working on my Girl Scout Week marathon. The first day of Girl Scout Week is March 6th. For us it's the last day of initial orders for cookie sales where things slow down a bit while we wait for cookie drop. You can join us as we wade through it to earn a fun patch or two!

And here is the binder card for Computer Expert:

I'm Looking forward to seeing you during Girl Scout Week!

Door Hanger Craft

Tonight we decided to crash the Fire Dept. meeting. We showed up about 30 minutes early so we could catch them standing around chatting before the meeting started.

Anybody that has sold cookies (competitively), has some in the freezer when the next cookie season rolls around. Well, I had 2 cases left. I got stuck with a 10 box sale plus the ones I ordered for myself -and for this year's taste test. What can I say, after we had our fill I blocked them out forgot about them! So I gave a few boxes away to neighbors and friends to make room for this year's. And we thought maybe if we gave out cookie samples we might have better sales this year :)

But - passing around a box of cookies to a group of people is unappealing to me and possibly even a little distasteful...

So this is how we served 'em up, and I think it's pretty cool even if I do say so myself.

Step 1. Download your council's door hanger from their cookie page. They're all different depending on what kinds of cookies they are selling this year. (Check out all of their cookie selling tools while you're there.)

Step 2. Go to www.pdfescape.com and fill it out for free on their site (I messed up 2 door hangers trying to fit my handwritten email address on those cards before I just gave up!)

Step 3. Trim your cards and carefully crease then fold the card like this:

Step 4. Put your Girl Scout to work to put a cookie in small plastic snack bags (or small craft bags). Insert the filled bag like I've shown below and staple. Make sure to staple like a matchbook.

Easy peasy. At first I thought I could cut these up and staple them like snack toppers, but I think the matchbook setup is way better because the order form just folds out.

These door hangers were formated perfectly to fold them this way. I printed up extra to punch holes in the top and use them for their original purpose, but using them for sample packs was a very happy situation for my Little Brownie. We put Toffee-tastic in half and Rah-Rah Raisin in the rest. (I marked them with a small "T" or "R" so I could look slick when people asked for a certain kind.) Those are the flavors that people I've spoken to ask me to describe. Then people give you the hairy-eye when you describe them like they are afraid to try them out anyway :( This was a no-commitment solution for them.

My daughter handed these out and got orders from all but 2 of the guys there, but they still had the order form and our contact info so they could order later. (They admitted that they wanted to ask their wives which kinds to get.) Not one of them refused the sample. I love handing out samples anyway, I really think they make a difference. I call them "gateway cookies", and even went so far as to bring thin mint brownies to our cookie booth last year. I had printed up the recipe cards from the Little Brownie Baker website and put them on the table with the brownie samples.

In case anyone is wondering, each order tonight included at least one box of one or both of the sample flavors.

And I have room in my freezer for this years cookies. Win/win!

On to the next adventure - Good luck and Happy cookie sales, my friends!

Ode to Lemonades...

This weekend I was scrapbooking. I do Project Life, but there is a serious shortage of Girl Scout themed pocket cards in this world. I Googled some keywords and ended up on Pinterest. Well, I completely lost track of why I was even there - it happens... Cookie season being what it is, I stumbled across (and am swimming in) everything cookie!

There are so many activities and patches to earn that could quite possibly leave you with no time whatsoever to SELL the cookies! Here are a couple that I have found:

There is a new cookie patch for the Lemonades for their 10th birthday. These are ABC Baker products, but if you're a collector it doesn't matter. This is the only place I have seen them so far, but I'm sure other councils or service units will have them in stock soon. On the up side, service unit shops are way cheaper on shipping :)

If you look hard enough, you can even find recipes that feature this little gem. I am dying to try Lemonades Pie and  Lemonade Cookie Gelato, but if you check Google or Pinterest you'll find tons! If you just can't find these bad boys in your area, there are even knock-off recipes to make your own - but you didn't hear that from me...



It is on this same site for GSMH SU 738 out of Columbia, MO that I saw the Cookie Booster Activity complete with...wait for it...a patch!

You can download either Little Brownie Bakers version or ABC Bakers. There are a bunch of fun games and other activities, as well as printables.

They have a limited number of patches available, so if you decide to do this activity, get your order in quickly.

Be sure to share your Lemonades recipes!


Happy Julietting!

Thinking Day Crafts & A Girl Scout Week Patch!

Our Service Unit hosted their World Thinking Day event on Feb 6th, but it is officially on Feb 22nd. There are lots of crafts and traditions associated with World Thinking Day and here is a site with tons of info for your reading pleasure.

This year's theme is "Connect" and since it changes every year, you can find the most current info here. I have read that you can put this patch on the front of your vest, but I have never, ever, ever seen anyone do that...

I read up some of the traditions when I was researching for our booth last year. I don't remember what site I was on, but I particularly liked the idea of placing a lit candle in the window and reflecting on Girl Scouts around the world, knowing that Girl Scouts around the world were doing the same thing and also thinking about us! My daughter and I whooped up a little craft that only cost a dollar and scavanged bits from my scrapbooking stash.

Thinking Day 2015

We just got a votive holder from the Dollar Tree and printed "This Little Light of Mine, I'm Gonna Let It Shine"  (because it was mentioned on the website I was looking at) and the WAGGS logo on vellum paper. We cut it to size and curled it around the short votive. We only had it lit for a few minutes because I didn't want to burn the house down... I am looking for ways to actually affix the image and lettering onto the glass so we can relax and enjoy it.

The Vellum sat correctly in the holder until I took it out to dust it and take pics... 

I don't want to move onto the next thing until I mention that there is also the World Thinking Day 2016 Challenge Badge that can be earned by completing an activity pack. Most of these look pretty much like many of the other team building or confidence building activities that you would normally do with your journeys. So even if you don't want the patch, the info for the activities could be useful for other things.



Now, on to the next thing! I was scrolling down through the Girl Scout Gab Facebook page and a nice lady posted the requirements for the Girl Scout Week Patch! Girl Scout Week is celebrated for 7 days each March, starting with Girl Scout Sunday and ending with Girl Scout Sabbath/Shabbat on Saturday, and it always includes the Girl Scout Birthday, March 12. This year it is March 6-12. Even if you don't have a group you can do this with you can still have fun and earn the patch. The first page is the requirements sheet that an adult must check off and the second sheet is the order form for the patch. Complete the requirements each day and send $2 along with both completed pages for this year's fun patch! You can also order this patch here for $1.75 plus shipping. (This is NOT an affiliate link)

And let's not forget this one... I believe you only have to wear your Girl Scout uniform to church on Girl Scout Sunday to earn the Girl Scout Sunday Patch. Please look up the requirements before purchasing this patch.

So hopefully everyone is on the patch train for the next few weeks! I don't know about you all, but I still haven't ironed on anything since before the Fall Festival, and I'm thinking I may need to go get out the iron!

As usual, until next time, my marvelous Juliette friends, and Happy Ironing! (I think there may even be a patch for that, lol)

A Visit With A Junior Troop

Last night we went to a meeting with Troop 6710 in Beebe, AR. The leader is a parent in my daughter's old troop, and has a Junior troop of her own. They are working on the Agent of Change Leadership Journey. This visit was spurred by the bridging requirements to work with an older troop and a younger troop. (I have requested a list of Daisy troops in our area, so that next year we can hopefully work with a younger troop.)

Since there would be an extra girl in the meeting, (my girl) I felt obliged to whip up a kaper chart for this visit so that all of the girls would get a kaper. I wish I had added small tags to label each bracelet, but since it was a last minute idea, I was kind of squeezed on time. We had to look at the box each time we moved to another activity and it was a hassle. And why, yes, that IS a tissue box (very handy and self contained for a kaper chart).


I could even have added a green bracelet if we'd had one more girl. General Assistant got opening and unplanned stuff, and Quality Control was to take care of closing and make sure that the room was left better than we found it.

We wanted the girls to get something out of the meeting that applied to both levels. My Little Brownie is working on Brownie Quest. We decided to do the "I'm Being Framed" activity where the girls add positive descriptive words to a self-portrait. We found an awesome template file for that here. (The file link is way at the bottom of her very inspiring blog post.) This activity ties into both journeys, and hey, it never hurts to take a few minutes to remind our girls how awesome they are.

I was so tickled to see the girls working on this project because even though they all started out with the same materials - every single picture was unique - just like every girl!

I wish I had taken the time to create a doc file with more words, but the girls also hand-wrote some of their own. A couple of the girls even drew their own portrait instead of using the templates.

Two girls came in late after I took these pics, we got everything back out and let them each do one too -and I'm kicking myself for not getting pics of their posters as well...

We took a few minutes to talk about Juliette Gordon Low and the upcoming birthday of Girl Scouting with some history trivia about the first troop in Savannah, GA.

All in all, everybody enjoyed themselves and each girl got something out of the activity that they will hopefully carry in their hearts. Each girl was able to see that their individual talents and personality traits are strengths and valuable additions to their Girl Scout teams.

This activity fulfilled one of the requirements for both Brownie Quest Discover Key and Agent of Change Power of One, which are in the first session to use words or pictures to tell others about who you are.

I took the opportunity at the end of the meeting to give each of the girls a fun patch in appreciation of sharing their meeting with us and giving us an opportunity to make new friends. My Little Brownie and I really love visiting with other troops and joining in events where other troops are present.

And of course, I went straight home after the meeting and made a scrapbook layout for the occasion. For this post, of course, I had to alter the picture to hide these lovely young ladies' faces - sorry! I posted the unaltered pictures for the parade in December, but that was a public event. Now that I am a little better at Photoshop, I can make one for Troop 6533 that included us in their parade!

Until next time, my wonderful Juliette Friends!