Girl Scouts and Ribbon Board

Hi Everyone!

It has been a hectic and transitional week.  Pretty much just trying to get back into our normal not summer routines. School, band, soccer, and Girl Scouts are all starting back up again.  All 3 of my girls are in Girl Scouts- all different levels and different troops that meet at different times.  And I am the leader for my 8th grader's troop. Sometimes I still wonder how I got suckered into leadership, but after going on 8 years, I wouldn't give it up for the world.  Some of these girls have been with this troop since the beginning.  It has been wonderful to watch these girls grow from little 1st graders to the beautiful, amazing young ladies that are ready to take on any challenge that 8th grade can dish out!

Anyway, one of my biggest challenges for my troop meetings as they have gotten older is finding activities that 1) takes more than 5 minutes but less than 1.5 hours to complete;
2) relates to what is going on in their lives or troop plans; and 3) something that will not just be taken home and thrown on the floor or in a drawer and forgotten.

So this week, my project doesn't actually involve paper.  Our "Welcome Back" project for my troop will be to make Ribbon Boards to hang in their lockers.  I thought about traditional cork boards at first, but I don't want the teachers and custodians mad at me when push pins and thumbtacks keep falling on the floor in the hall.  And magnet boards seems redundant considering the whole locker is metal! So came the ribbon board project- no pins to fall out and still plenty of places to put pics or notes or whatever they want!

Here is what I used for my ribbon board:

I used an 8x10 canvas (value pack is on sale at Michael's this week), quilt batting, fabric left over from other projects that I never started, staple gun, ribbon, and thumbtacks (but I will be switching this out for brads).

There are lots of tutorials online about using foam board or cork board, and I thought about those. But since I got the canvases on sale, that is what I went with.  The boards are actually very easy.  The hardest part was deciding which fabric and ribbons to use.

First, cut the batting and fabric large enough to have about 3 inches extra on every side. Lay the batting down, then place the canvas (face down) on top of the batting.  Pull the batting around the edges and staple to the frame of the canvas. It can help to cut the extra fabric away from the corners to keep the bulk down. Next, place your fabric good side down on your table.  Place your batting covered canvas on top of the fabric and repeat stapling like with the batting.  (Tip: pull fabric as tight as you can to get out any wrinkles, working with opposite sides) I didn't take a pic of this part.

Now that you have the canvas covered, play with the ribbon placement until you are happy with it. Place pins at the ribbon intersections to hold them in place. Flip canvas over and attach the ends of the ribbon to keep them in place. I went a little overboard with my staple gun trying to aim with my smaller ribbon, my troop will be using hot glue for this part. 

All that is left is to replace the pins at the ribbon intersections with something more permanent.  I used white thumbtacks (would have worked if I used the cork or foam boards). The canvas was pretty tough to poke through so I had to use one of my piercing tools. Then the tacks wouldn't stay by themselves. Again, improvising with extra school supplies, I cut up one of the extra big pink erasers and stuck them on the back of the tacks to keep them in place. I like how it looked from the front, but I will be replacing them with brads for a more permanent solution.  Attach a ribbon on the top and it's ready to hang!

I have a blog hop post coming up later in the week...  make sure to come back to check it out!