Girl Guide Cookie Witch Hats!

With Halloween fast approaching and cookie season winding down I thought I would share an easy little treat that I learned how to make when I was a Pathfinder! This would be a great addition to a unit Halloween party or just a treat at home. Enjoy!  

All you need is some Girl Guide cookies, icing, Hershey's kisses, and food colouring (not pictured).

First I used a little bit of food colouring to make some Halloween coloured icing.

Then I used a Ziploc bag with a hole in the corner to pipe the icing onto the cookie. 

The last thing you have to do is pop a Hershey's kiss on the top and you have a little witch hat. I only wish that the kisses were a little bit darker to match the cookies. Oh well! 

That's it! It takes about five minutes to make and they are so cute! Let me know if you make these! 

Tipi Camp Tales!

Somehow I chose the coldest weekend we have had in a long time to take my guide unit out to tipi camp... I have to say that I am so impressed with my girls- there was no complaining, lots of smiles, and a lot of fun had at camp! Fall is my favourite time of year for a number of reasons- one of them has to be that it is so colourful and beautiful. I enjoyed being out in nature with a great group of girls! 

Here was our home for the night... I have tipi camped as a girl, but never as a leader. A few of our girls had never been camping at all let alone in a tipi in negative temperatures! I was so proud (I will probably say that a lot in this post.) 

These mushrooms were everywhere! How can you not believe in faeries when you see things like this! 

The girls played a few active games to keep warm- this is one they made up themselves. I have no idea what they were doing, but they seemed to be having fun! 

In keeping with the tipi camp theme we made parfleches, a traditional pouch for carrying things, out of vinyl shelf liners, yarn, and coloured Sharpies. If you are interested in a tutorial for this craft let me know!  

Onto the nature walk.. so many beautiful fall colours, and the sun came out! The girls were so excited they were wearing only t-shirts in 5 degree weather. :)

The girls were having such a good time tromping through the woods! 

A few of the Guides made their own tipi out of sticks, I liked the contrast between their tipi and the real one. 

How perfect is this photo? Girl Guides at its finest... would be great for PR (just saying!). 

I didn't really take a ton of pictures in the evening and the next day, but it was a great camp! What a way to start the Guiding year! :) 

International Day of the Girl 2015

My Guide Unit did the Girl Guides of Canada International Day of the Girl challenge this week and they loved it! I was so impressed with how amazing their gender neutral toys were I thought I would share them with you! I would highly reccommend doing the challenge with your unit- it is very well done! Check it out here! 

We made the toys in patrols. The Lily of the Valley patrol decided to make robots. Here are a few pictures of the planning process, the building of, and the final presentation of their Goybots (Girl/Boy Robots)

The Daffodil patrol took a different route and decided to make a board game that everyone would like to play! They made a game called Snowman Mania where the object of the game is to build a snowman (cue Frozen?) They were so proud of it they wanted to keep it at the hall so we could play it another meeting.

(I love the warning- it says "Warning choking hazard don't let children under 5 play or get close to small pieces) So clever!

The Swallow patrol took a completely different approach and made a stuffed animal toy sitting on a cat cloud... :) They didn't do any planning but worked through their challenges as they were trying to make their toy as a team and they were happy with the final product and that is what counts! 

Not only is the program awesome, the crest is so pretty too! :) 

Make it Monday: Toque Hat Craft!

I had a request to do a tutorial on this toque camp hat craft and I thought I would share this super easy craft! All you need is yarn, a toilet paper roll, and some scissors. It can be difficult to collect a ton of toilet paper rolls so I keep my wrapping paper tubes from Christmas time to use for crafts like this. 

The first thing you want to do is cut the paper tube so it is about 3 cm long and cut the yarn into 15-20 cm pieces. One hat takes about 40 strands of yarn. 

The next step is simply looping the yarn around the tube kind of like a slip knot. Make sure you put the same end (either the looped end or the two edges) over the tube in the same direction to have a uniform look. Though it is much faster to loop a few pieces of yarn together at a time it looks much better when you do it one piece at a time. 

When you have tied the yarn all the way around the cardboard tube flip all of the yarn "inside out" so the knots are at the bottom of the tube. This will create a clean base for your toque.

Use one piece of yarn to tie the top of the hat together, make sure you leave enough yarn at the top to make a pom pom. 

The last step is to trim the top of the hat to make a neat pom pom. Stick your finger in the bottom of the hat to fluff it out and add a safety pin and you are done!

And voila! This craft is a quintessential activity for any age group and it is so cute! Thank you to Gwendolyn in BC for the request and if anyone else has a request for a blog post please let me know! 

5 Ways to Start off a Great Guiding Year!

With the Guiding year beginning in just a few weeks I thought it would be fun to come up with a short list of ideas to start off the year with other Guiders. We focus so much on getting our unit meetings and activities planned and ready for the girls sometimes we forget about the sisterhood we have with other Guiders. Here are some ways I would love to start off the Guiding year!

1. Have a campfire

Campfire is one of my absolute favourite parts of Guiding; there is nothing like sitting around a fire and singing songs with friends. If you are ever stumped for a campfire program check out Guiding with Guider Dusk Resources on Facebook. Dawn is an amazing Guider in my area that shares her passion for music by creating campfires and posting the plans online for other Guiders to use. The theme for the September 2015 campfire is "Sounds of Happiness" and it is posted on the Facebook page.

2. Craft Supplies Swap

Every Guider that I know has a TON of random craft supplies. Left over fun foam from a craft where you needed 10 sheets and the pack came with 12 sheets and if you want to do the craft again next year you need to buy more sheets anyways, extra pipe cleaners, the five bags of googly eyes you somehow have etc. etc. I know I have this problem and I also know I am not the only one. To have a craft supplies swap all you need to do is invite a bunch of Guiders, bring the craft supplies that you don't need but don't want to throw away and put them out on a table, walk around and take what you want for your unit. It is easy and a good way to use up the little bits of craft supplies. 

3. District Meeting Discussion Time
I went to a commissioners training a few years ago and one of the ideas that really stuck with me was having time at every district meeting for all of the leaders for each branch to have some time to talk with each other and share ideas about games, crafts, themes, camps, etc. I think it would be great to have all of the Sparks leaders talk, all of the Guide leaders talk and so on so that everyone gets some new ideas without spending a ton of time listening to things that might not be relevant to you and your unit. For example a Sparks leader might not care how to book a whitewater rafting trip, but all of the Pathfinder leaders might find that interesting. I am going to suggest it to my commissioner this year and see how it goes.  

4. Great Camping Cook-Off! 
This next idea might take a bit of time to plan, but it would be super fun to have a "cook-off" of different camping recipes to start off the year. Pick your favourite recipe, and either cook it up with your fellow Guiders or bring it and have a potluck of sorts with everyone's snacks. For bonus fun and resources have everyone bring copies of the recipe to put together into a district/community cookbook!  

5. Games, games, games! 
Everyone love a good game right? Playing games with your fellow Guiders is a good way to get to know each other and learn a few games to stick in your back pocket for when you are with your girls. I would highly recommend Becky's Guiding Resource for great game ideas.  

How will you be starting up the Guiding year in your districts, areas, and communities?  

Edible Campfires

I had to go looking through all of my posts to make sure I haven't talked about this before and I was honestly shocked that I hadn't because this is one of my favourite things to do with girls of any age. Edible campfires are a super easy activity that can be done at any time of the year and only take a few minutes to create. Even though it is pretty straightforward, here are some step-by-step instructions on how to make this delicious and adorable treat. 

Ingredients: Digestive cookies, chocolate icing, Swedish Berries (or other red candies), pretzel sticks, and mini marshmallows.

Step 1: Spread chocolate icing onto your cookie to act as the dirt of the campfire. If it is a little thick that is okay, it will help the other ingredients stay on! 

Step 2: Add the Swedish Berry to the middle of the cookie to act as the fire. Add two or three to make a roaring fire! 

Step 3: Place mini marshmallows around the cookie to act as the rocks around the fire. 

Step 4: Add pretzels to make your wood- you can use a tipi method, a log cabin, or a bit of both! 

And that is it! A simple recipe that I have found Sparks all the way to leaders have enjoyed! 

This snack has always been a hit, let me know if you use it in your unit!
ENJOY! 

Yellow Fish Road Service Project!

As a year end service project my unit participated in Yellow Fish Road- a program that draws attention to the fact that storm sewers are not filtered before they lead to the river.We use a stencil to paint a yellow fish next to the storm drain as a reminder. We got the kits to do it at our area office for only a small deposit and in one two hour evening we covered an entire neighbourhood! 

What the finished product looks like- a constant reminder to the neighbourhood that what goes down the drain goes in the water supply. 

For more information please check out the website and do it with your own unit! My girls had a blast and want to do it again next year! 

http://www.yellowfishroad.org/