During our planning meeting, Trinity discovered we had a large number of craft badges that really needed using up, especially with the programme changes coming up. The Guides also enjoy craft so it seemed to match up well.
What I’m loving about this group is that they don’t just do the easy thing, they put in effort to make meetings as interesting as possible for the Guides. Our county office allows you to rent interesting art equipment and we decided to go with pyrography and encaustic art. We had two pyrography irons and five encaustic art irons so we also did shrink plastic keyrings to fill in the time. We also had a Duke of Ed volunteer start with us, Mulan. She seems good with the Guides.
I was in charge of the pyrography irons and seeing that no one burnt themselves or the tables. We got wooden coasters from baker ross and let them draw their own designs with the advice to not make it too detailed. Not all of them took that advice sadly but they really did enjoy getting to use the irons. A couple of them were a bit nervous at the start but built up confidence and helped one another. I also let Mulan and Merida have a go and have suggested that we could hire them for a Senior Section meeting and let them have a longer go.
I didn’t get to watch much of the encaustic art but it looked beautiful. They melted wax onto the iron then spread it onto a sheet of paper to make gorgeous patterns. Once again no one burnt themselves and they all seemed to have fun.
The final activity was shrink plastic keyrings, the Guides drew onto the rough side of the plastic, their drawings had to be about 3-4 times the size they wanted them to end up and punch a hole through. There were a lot of unicorns, apparently someone had come into school and taught them how to draw one. Then they went onto a baking sheet and in the oven for a few minutes where they shrink down and thicken. Then the Guides just had to thread the key ring loop.
I’m very impressed at the quality of craft we did and I’m really looking forward to the rest of the badge.
The Guide Life 