Patch Distribution

There comes a time in every girl scouts life when they experience that quintessential girl scout experience, and they receive patches!

This is generally a *very* exciting and rewarding time for these girls, and as a leader, you want to make this experience special.  You have the fall back option of tossing the patches in a plastic baggie and calling it good, but most leaders like something a little prettier.  I have Daisy's so my girls are pretty little yet.  I have done a few distributions with girls this age, but we recently relocated, and so I have a new group of little ladies, and we are coming up on their first badge distribution.  This is an especially exciting time for them because these will be there *first* patches in their girl scout career.

I didn't want to spend a ton of money, since we are a new troop, and I also got my girls all a little gift to commemorate their first badges, so I rooted around in the house.  I started looking through craft supplies in my craft closet, and found a super cute spool of daisy ribbon, and I was off!



Supplies: 

Spool of Ribbon
Scissors
Lighter
Stapler
Patches
Embellishments


My girls all have different amounts of patches dependent upon who made it to what meetings, but I do like order, so I picked an order for the patches, and kept it throughout all of my girls, even if they were missing a few.

1.  Lay patches out in order on the table, and unroll the ribbon next to it.  You'll want to leave about 2 inches at the top and at the bottom.  Measure and cut ribbon.

2.  Lay out patches on the ribbon, and staple each on to the ribbon.  Each patch, I've found, works best with two staples in it, on opposite corners.

3.  Light the lighter and pass both ends of the ribbon through it - this will prevent the ribbon from fraying.

4.  I like to embellish these with some kind of theme, or cute start and finish.  I add the name in some capacity on the bottom - this time, I printed it on the ribbon itself - and I add some kind of embellishment at the beginning.  I haven't decided what I will put on these, but in the past I've used cute bottons, made bows, or added a small gift card for McD's (for my last troops first distribution).

My girls have always loved these, and I enjoy thinking up different ways to personalize them!  How do you handle your patch distribution?  Do you theme yours? I love seeing ways other leaders hand out their patches, so please comment and share!