Sunday, June 3, 2012

Recycled Swap Ideas for Girl Scout Events


Swaps - "Special whatchamacllits affectionately pinned somewhere" - are a strange Girl Scout tradition that somehow I managed to avoid during my childhood stint.

But following one spring activity when my daughter learned about these, she was determined not to go to the next event empty-handed.

I struggle with the idea of swaps. I don't like clutter, and I don't like spending money to create more clutter for others. So I tried to find ideas for recycled swap ideas online to no avail.

My answer came in an unusual place: Our school's Girl Scout closet. When looking in there for supplies for another activity one day, I stumbled across a bag of cast-aside patches. Most were dated and could never be used. They became the fodder for several swaps!


On this patch, I used leftover flower brads to cover the date. I then attached the safety pin on the back.

With this old 100 cookie boxes sold patch, I added a brad with a Girl Scout trefoil sticker on it, then adhered a safety pin on the back. Perfect since it was for the 100th anniversary celebration!

This is the only swap that didn't use "recycled" supplies per se, but I figure old leftover scrapbooking supplies are just as good! We attached random metallic letters and numbers ("GS," "BGS," "100," etc.) to safety pins and then tied it with that feathery string that was the rage in scrapbooking more years ago than I care to admit.

This was from a 2006 Daisy Scouting event. We trimmed off the background and date information and attached the pin on the back. Interestingly, this was one of the favorites at the 100th anniversary event!

With a little creativity and some leftover supplies or castoffs, who knows what you can create!

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