by Petra Sando

Created on: September 29, 2007   Last Updated: June 10, 2011

MY FAVORITE GROUP CRAFT ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS

My Girl Scouts and I have had lots of fun doing crafts together as a group. Here are some of the things we enjoyed together:

* PAPER MASKS

We had great fun making paper masks from paper plates and various decorative items from pipe cleaners, colorful ribbons, feathers and beads. Just decorate the plates to resemble animals, clowns, fantasy birds and the like, cut openings for the eyes, punch holes on either side (horizontally, across from each other), and attach string on the sides of the mask, so that you can tie them on the back of the kids' heads. Voila!

* GREETING CARDS

Another easy project are greeting cards. Just get some card stock, crayons, "foamies" of different shapes and sizes and glue. Kids also love to decorate with glitter glue and glitter shapes or confetti! Just let their imagination go wild!

* "NATURAL" ORNAMENTS AND PICTURES

A cool project for any season are ornaments and pictures made with diverse dry food items, such as rice, peas, lentils, and different colors of beans. You just create a shape from cardboard, trace off different sections (which will be showing different colors of dried goods), and after adding a generous amount of glue, add the fillers mentioned above to create an amazing artwork. Give your masterpieces a few hours to dry before moving or attaching string to them.
My daughter created a fantastic turkey for school one day - for Thanksgiving! I also remember making ornaments in the same fashion years ago when I was a kid they were great fun to make!

* GIRL SCOUT "SWAPS"

My favorite group activity are Girls Scout "SWAPs"! The acronym "SWAP" stands for: "Special Whatchamacallits Affectionately Pinned Somewhere.". They used to be exchanged as keepsakes at National Girl Scout Roundups, and they are still used to get to know each other, and make new friends when troops meet. Each one is a hand-made memory of a special event or a keepsake from a Girl Scout Sister.

SWAPs come in many different shapes and sizes and are just the greatest thing in the world! They often are a great way of recycling everyday items in the Girl Scout way: "using your resources wisely"! All of them are very "crafty and often involve items like beads, paper, pipe cleaners, miniature things, bottle caps, clothespins and much more check the Yahoo groups and the Internet in general on Girl Scout Swaps for some awesome ideas!

The Girl Scout website tells the following about SWAPs:

SWAPs should:
Tell something about the givers or their troop/group. (Girls may include their address or email information so others can write to them.) They often represent the givers' country, community, or local Girl Scout council.

I also have found that a lot of the Girl Scouts use events, cultural background or seasonal holidays as an inspiration for creating their SWAPs. Some look simply pretty and make great jewelry; others are reminders of camp activities and the like.

More info is available on SWAP etiquette at:

http://www.girlscouts.org/program/gs%5Fcentral/swaps /

Now, I wish you and your group lots of fun!

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