Girl's Camp 2009

Girl's Camp was months ago, but I've had several of you ask me what exactly I was up to in this post. Our Girl's Camp theme was: I Strive to Be G.R.E.E.N. (Grateful, Respectful, Energetic, Example and Nice). Each day at camp we focused on one of the acronyms of G.R.E.E.N.

I wanted to get the girls excited for Camp, so I decided to pass out little treats with cute sayings on them the last month before camp. One of the focuses, was to be "Green" or environmentally friendly, so I found a font online that had different pictures and symbols which represented recycling, tree huggers, etc. I also used this font throughout the process.

Barnum's Animal Crackers with the saying: "Don't worry about living like an animal for a week, we do it all the time". Then there is a recycling symbol below that and the Girl's Camp theme at the bottom.

This treat was Chocolate Covered Cinnamon Bears that said: "YW Field Guide to Bear Identification" in a Bear font that I found online for free :D This also included a recycling symbol and the Camp Theme at the bottom.

Pop Rocks: "Camp Rocks"

Fruit & Nut Granola Bar: "There a little Fruit and Nut in all of us"

Another idea I did, but didn't take a picture of:
Little Baggy with 2 Golden Grahams, 1 small marshmallow and 1 chocolate chip: "Want S'more?"



Each ward was in charge of providing notebooks for the music, instead of making each leader their own, since our turnover is really high, I decided to make 1 for each position (YW President, 1st Counselor, 2nd Counselor, Secretary, Camp Director, Camp Assist. Director).

For one of our pre-camp activities the girls decorated their binders and they will get to keep them when they turn 18. They all turned out so cute and I think the girls really enjoyed making them.

Now, onto the main event. As soon as I heard about the theme, I went crazy and started thinking about all of the fun things I could create. Last year we purchased canvas totes from Robert's and decorated them with puff paints and fabric stars. I wanted to do something more practical, so this is what I came up with:

We took these swatches...

and after trying 3 different kinds of canvas, we found the one that would work perfectly...

we started cutting, and measuring...

all the while, trying to keep track of whose was whose...
my mother-in-law was a saint to help me out, and the sewing began...
the project was finally starting to take shape...
The final project....a drawstring backpack and matching journal.

Two cute pockets in the front of the backpack, one for the journal and one for a water bottle.

The journal below I made with the help of my sweet friend (2nd Counselor at the time) Dorothy. She was a saint through all of my madness. We also used her mother's embroidery machine to embroider each of the girl's names on the inside of their journal.
Our older girls, came and helped us pick out a button that would fit each girl's personality and make them original. I was so impressed with their skills and how mindful they were of each girl.

I found some of this fabric at the fabric store and knew I had to create something and incorporate it into our theme somehow...

so I made these little buttons for their backpacks.

Then I took all of the scraps...

and made a cute fabric banner for our cabin! It includes a piece from each girl's fabric that they chose for the backpack and journals, although they didn't know what they were choosing the fabric for.

While the girls were away at flag ceremony, we put the backpacks with all sorts of goodies on the table.

Our Girl's Camp flag below: It includes two separate pieces from each of the different fabric. The girls put their names on the squares at the top and their year of camp on the rectangles at the bottom. My favorite part...we used glow-in-the-dark puff paint!!!!

And finally, one of the crafts we made at camp was a block with the Mutual Theme on it.
Front:

Back:

I realize now, this is an extremely LONG post with lots of pictures, but I've been wanting to share for a long time! About two weeks after Girl's Camp ended, I was released. And a short month or two later my husband and I were called as the Nursery Leaders. Now we spend our Sundays playing with 18 month to 3 year olds and have enjoyed their little spirits and their ever abundant energy.