Wednesday 31 October 2012

Guides Halloween Craft





About five years ago I bought this Halloween craft at a yardsale.  {It was $1.00 and too cute to pass up}.  I thought it would be fun to make at Girl Guides but at that time I was Brown Owl for Brownies...and this craft would be a little too difficult for Brownie aged girls to make.  So, now that I am a Guide Guider again I thought that we could tackle this craft. {For those of you who follow my blog know that I am trying to downsize my craft room and had half the suppies needed for this craft already!}  I had just enough orange fabric left over from a sewing project many years ago...and I already had three bags of the stuffing that I had picked up at a yardsale ...I  had the burlap out in my garden shed... enough 2L pop bottles on their way to the recycle depot...had the needles and thread...and lots of plastic spiders/bats that my sister had sent from Edmonton for the Guides last Fall.  I had to purchase some stuff though:  nylons for the face and hands, black felt for the hat and eyes, black fabric for the cape, broom supplies, craft fur for the hair, hot glue sticks, and a wooden base.  Hubby came home from work with free plywood for the base and he had cut it into 6x6 squares for us {woo hoo!}. 
I had decided to do some prep work first since we always run out of time at our meetings.  I stuffed and attached the nylon heads to the 2L pop bottle and precut the orange dress...then I used my sewing machine to partially sew the dress.  {This craft took two meetings to complete}.  The first meeting we allowed 45 minutes for the girls to work on their Witch.  They had to sew a gathering stitch around the top of the dress so that it would stay on the body, stitch a face and paint the wood base black.
They did not get as much done the first night as I had anticipated since alot of gabbing was going on...but that's part of the fun right! So I ended up making the craft into a Kit so  they could have fun assembling it.  {I had two weeks to prep for this so I did it while watching TV}.It would have taken atleast four meetings to do this all on their own! {and they do not like sewing!}

For the second meeting I still had to find something to use for the hair.  I went to a fabric store and the faux craft fur was mucho expensive so I decided to just use yarn for the hair ...until...I was lurking around the Dollarama in the Halloween aisle and noticed some Monkey masks that had fur that would make perfect Witch's hair!  Problem solved!  I precut the hair, the cape {which I then made a drawstring pull so that they just had to tie it on their Witch}, made the arms so that they could just safety pin them to the dress, made the hats from black sparkly felt, made the burlap bags, and used a real broom and dowels to make the mini brooms.  

The Guides had fun assembling their Witch...and used their own creativity to personalize their craft even though it ended up being a kit.  

Here are some of their adorable creations!







This last one I had made for one of our Guiders...but ran out of the orange fabric so I used black for the dress and used fabric from a dollarama costume to make the cape.  I used google eyes on this one not the black felt.  It turned out great!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!


Sunday 28 October 2012

Owl & Toadstool 5000+ Pageviews

Hi Blogland! Just like to take the time to say thanks to all of you who have been viewing my blog.  I now have over 5000 pageviews since I started this blog just over a year ago.  I hope you all keep coming back.  Here are some of the Countries that have visited Owl & Toadstool...

Canada,   USA,   United Kingdom,   Australia,   Belgium,   India,   Ireland, China,    New Zealand,   Sri Lanka,   Taiwan,   Malaysia,   Singapore,   Pakistan, France,   Republic of Korea,  Germany,   Maldives,   South Africa,   Philippines, Thailand,   Japan,   Barbados,   Spain,   Netherlands,   Poland,   Cook Islands, Hungary,   Sweden,   Serbia,   Slovakia,  Argentina,   Russian Federation,   Denmark, Norway,   Gibraltar,   Martinique,   Oman,   Saint Lucia,   Vietnam,   Ethiopia,   Hong Kong, Bangladesh,   Algeria,   Turkey,   Israel,   Uruguay,   United Arab Emirates,   Portugal.

And thank you to the four 
blog member followers!
Clipart from www.girlguides.ca
Blogging is a great way to share ideas with other Guiders!

Monday 22 October 2012

Shawna JC Tenney Girl Guide Illustrations


Girl Guide paper dolls 
from around the world 


UK 2012 Brownie Annual
These awesome paperdolls are from illustrator Shawna JC Tenney.  These were printed in the UK 2012 Brownie Annual.  These would be great to use with a Girl Guide lapbook or scrapbook.


To learn more about Shawna JC Tenney and her awesome artwork go to her blog and website.

UK 2012 Brownie Annual 
Check out the amazing merchandise at the Girl Guiding UK On line shop!

Wednesday 17 October 2012

Sparks Promise minibook

I have been attending the Sparks meetings for the past month and forgot just how much they enjoy colouring!  Hmmm...I have been making up minibooks for Guides and Brownies so it is about time I made something for the Sparks!

Tuesday 16 October 2012

Brownies Promise & Law Minibooks

These little minibooks are great for Brownies. Brownie age girls may need assistance with the folding and cutting but they can read and colour the pages on their own. Use the Brownies Promise and Law minibooks in a Lapbook or just on their own.

*Update 23 Sept 2015 * The link to the folding instructions is no longer available so here is an image that I found on Google images for folding these mini books.  


Sunday 14 October 2012

The Guide Law Minibook

This mini book is a neat little way to help the Girl Guides remember the Guide Laws.  For each law the girls can either draw a picture, symbol, or associate a certain colour to represent what that individual Guide Law means to them. {folding instructions}  

In my Guide Unit we discuss one law each week.  This is done in Patrol Groups and a Leader is assigned to each Patrol to facilitate the discussion. {Or if you only have 2 leaders have one leader check in with all Patrols to see how the discussion is going while the other leader is getting ready} This allows time for the other leaders to get ready before opening Horseshoe. 

If you would like the Guide Law mini book file just leave a request in the comments.   We will be adding this minibook to our Lapbooks {original post here}.

Tuesday 2 October 2012

New GGC Guider Scarf

New Scarf for Guiders! I love it! but at $25.95 {plus $9 shipping and %15 tax} I don't think I will be buying one anytime soon.  I don't know about you but I think the merchandise is a little bit on the pricey side.  If you would like to see other girl guide store merchandise go to www.thegirlguidestore.ca