Girl Scout Journey Celebration

My daughter's Junior troop recently completed their Journey to earn their Get Moving badge.  They spent the last year diligently working on it, learning about energy and conservation along the way.  The Journey concluded with an event at a local park to celebrate their accomplishment.  Because I love parties, I volunteered to assist the mom leading the event.  She was gracious enough to let me be her collaborator on the project.  It was so much fun to share this project with her - thanks, T.!  We are kindred party-planning spirits!

To honor the journey, we stuck with an earth and conservation theme and worked to bring in lots of color as well as upcycled and reclaimed elements with some pretty vintage touches as the cherry on top and is that a run-on sentence or what?

Food
Dirt cups:  Chocolate pudding and crumbs with whipped cream, enclosed in mason jars - the ultimate eco-friendly party tool.  T. gussied them up with cupcake wrappers on the lids for a punch of color.  She stacked them in a beautiful dark wood crate, which I totally covet!

Earth cupcakes:  Modified from this post (skipped the heart center), these were a hit.  Topped with a simple buttercream, they were quick, easy, and festive.  Side note - when I tinted the batter, I wasn't thinking and did more green than blue and it irritated me all day that my ratio of "land" to "water" was skewed.  Did I mention that I'm a geek?  Anyhoo, regarding the frosting - I did hear from some girls that the frosting was a bit too sweet.  Does anyone have a buttercream recipe that's less sweet?  Mine is 2 sticks butter, 4 cups powdered sugar (which I reduced to 3 cups), and a splash of milk and a bit of vanilla.  My favorite frosting is the cooked frosting recipe listed here - it is TO DIE FOR, but I was worried it wouldn't hold up in the heat - even the buttercream got a little flat and melty and buttercream is MUCH stiffer than this cooked frosting.  (And in case I wasn't clear - this frosting = AMAZING.)  But if you make it, do yourself a favor and do not use store-brand butter.  Name-brand butter only.  You may also want to do a practice run before trying to make it for an event.  There are some traps that can make things go very wrong.

Fruit Skewers:  T. and I split them up and each made half.  I really liked that approach because we ended up picking different fruits, which made for a nice variety in terms of taste and color.

Decor
The food table was covered in a blue cloth (originally, it was covered by T.'s creamy vintage lace tablecloth, but the high winds knocked over a pitcher of lilacs that some idiot put on the table (moi!), so we had to improvise.  Food was arranged around the aforementioned crate (me want!) and accented with some pretty pansies and a sweet little doily.  In lieu of water bottles, T. brought a beverage dispenser filled with cool water.  We supplied plastic cups which were cobbled together remnants from other parties.  We also made sure to bring recycling bins to the park.  The paper straws added a nice pop of color.  The final touch was a simple banner that T. put together with twine and vintage napkins - the napkins were draped over the twine and pinned in place.  Even in teh high winds, it held together nicely.  The vintage napkin banner was just the right little touch to bring some vintage elegance to the setting.

The girls sat picnic-style on blankets spread under trees to enjoy their treats.  The idea was to have jugs and jars of lilacs scattered around, but it was just too windy.  The lilacs were grouped in a pretty basket and used to accent the food table instead.

 Activity
In keeping with their focus on recycling, the girls made jewelry from reclaimed hardware.  We have a Tool Thrift Shop in town where donated items are resold at low prices.  All proceeds go to a local senior living facility.  I was able to find a ton of washers in various sizes.  A quick coat of primer and they were ready to be enameled with nail polish.  I found several sets of mini bottles at Big Lots and Marshall's and the girls went to town making unique pieces.  We provided hemp twine in bright colors to string the finished product.

Awards
The event concluded with the leaders talking with the girls about the highlights of the Journey followed by passing out their patches.  For a fun presentation, the patches and a seed packet with a vintage-inspired label were bundled into a colorful bandanna hobo pouch tied with jute twine.  Because the whole troop earned the same patch, there was no need to personalize the bandanna pouches.  In retrospect, we should have considered handing them out rather than letting the girls pick their own.  I noticed that while the leader was speaking, some of the girls were more focused on creeping closer to the bandannas to ensure that they could be the 1st to pick their color.  Oops!

Girl Scout Snack for Birdfeeder Making

I was the helping mom for my daugher's girl scout meeting last week.  They are working on completing their energy and conservation-themed journey this year and as part of that, were making an assortment of bird feeders and bird houses to place around the area.  Helping mom duties include providing a little snack and since I can't do anything like a normal person, I decided to make a snack with a bird feeding / bird house theme.  (Is anyone else obsessed with themes?  I think I missed my calling - I should be working at Disney World.)  Here's what I made...

Bird Seed
This was surprisingly delicious.  Mixed Corn Chex, Rice Krispies, hulled pumpkin and sunflower seeds, Craisins, golden raisins, and some mini-chocolate chips.  Yum!  This is now my go-to recipe for trail mix.  And it works for kids with nut allergies but still packs a protein punch.

Pretzel "Twigs"
Cheap, easy, and they really do look like twigs.

Gummy Worms
You know, for the baby birds in the nest!  Only one per girl so we didn't get into a sugar-high situation...

Water
I stopped short of making custom water bottle labels, because that would have been excessive, but also mostly because I ran out of time.

I pre-portioned everything in dixie cups for efficiency, and while it may not have been the best approach for a meeting focused on conservation, it was definitely efficient.  In my defense, we recycled everything...

Girl Scout Sweets Table

I volunteered to do the snacks for my daughter’s Girl Scout troop as they bridged from Brownies to Juniors.  I supplemented some of my own ideas with some Pinterest finds and was very pleased with the results!  One thing that I really need to improve on is photos.  I didn't get one picture of the assembled table - boo!  I hope that you find the text helpful anyway and I promise to try to do better with pictures.

I invested in a great folding table at my daughter’s last birthday.  It was a Craigslist find for $25 and it was worth every penny.  The legs fold up and the table folds in half AND it has a carrying handle, so it’s perfect for setting up on the go.  It fits right in the trunk of my sedan.  Rather than relying on the picnic tables at the park, I used my folding table and it was a good thing that I did.  It was a very hot, sunny day and all the picnic tables were getting full sun.  My chocolate-y treats would have melted away!  Instead, I was able to set up under a nice big tree and take advantage of the shade.

I put a lot of thought into how I was going to set up my treats in advance, even going so far as to draw a diagram.  It really helped me to understand what I needed in terms of serving pieces and supplies.  This proved to be very helpful since the event was not at my home and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get anything else after I reached the park.

The table was covered with a large white plastic tablecloth and topped with iridescent green cellophane tissue paper.  (I could have used fabric, but I knew that after the ceremony was done I would be tired and would just want to wrap up the trash and go.  It worked out really well.)  I scattered glass gems in different shades of green plus green and white starlight mints all over the table for fun / visual interest / added weight to fight the breeze.  I also came prepared with tape, which I used to attach the table coverings to the table legs - also a good idea because of the breeze.  All of these items came from the Dollar Store - $5!

I went with green and rainbow colors (green is the color of the Junior vests and rainbows are on the bridging patch) and tried to work in scouting references wherever possible.  Here’s what I made:

Water bottles with custom labels:  I did it myself to save money using a great tutorial that I found here – DIY Water Bottle Labels.  I found mini water bottles at Big Lots for $2.50 a case.

S’Mores Snack Mix:  So easy and yummy and scout-y.  Golden Grahams cereal mixed with jumbo chocolate chips and mini marshmallows.  Served this in a wooden salad bowl and provided a plastic scoop and tiny white Dixie cups to hold it.

Thin Mint Truffles:  I confess that I cheated here since we didn’t actually have any Thin Mints left from last year’s cookie sale and wouldn’t see any new boxes until November.  So I used Keebler Grasshopper cookies.  Don’t tell!  The recipe is basically Oreo Balls or Oreo Truffles, but made with mint cookies instead.  1 box cookies, 1 brick cream cheese, green candy melts.  Pulse cookies in food processor until you have crumbs.  Mix in softened cream cheese.  Pop in fridge to chill a bit or it will be difficult to roll the balls.  Melt your candy melts (I use a mug) and thin with Crisco if needed.  Roll cookie-cream cheese mixture into small balls and dip into candy melts.  Place on wax paper-covered plate and sprinkle with white sprinkles.  Place in fridge until candy melts are hardened.  To serve, I went fancy and put them in gold mini-muffin cups grouped on a platter.

S’Mores on a Stick:  Melt some chocolate, dip a lollipop stick in about a ¼”, stick into a marshmallow, dip the marshmallow into the chocolate, roll in graham cracker crumbs.  Once hardened, bag the marshmallow in a clear cello bag and tie.  I was very proud of how I served these.  I bought 2 small tin buckets at a thrift shop and 2 styrofoam balls at the Dollar Store.  The night before, I used a spare lollipop stick and punched enough holes on the top of each ball to hold the S’Mores sticks.  On the day, I put the balls in the tins, put the sticks in the balls, and covered the balls with green and white starlight mints, also from the Dollar Store.  I saved both the tins and the balls to use again.

Chocolate-covered pretzel sticks:  This was more of a filler / height-adder.  I used green and white sprinkles for these and served wrapped in cello bags and standing up in more tin buckets.

Green apples:  I placed a single apple on each platform of a many-armed cupcake holder.  Again, I did it for filler/height, but was pleasantly surprised that many of the girls did eat an apple.

 

For a “favor” of sorts, I found boxes of movie-sized Junior Mints at Wal-Mart, which I gussied up with kraft and scrapbook paper personalized labels and my floral punch.