Girl Scout SWAP Ideas
SWAPS is the famous culture followed in girl scouts that encourages friendship between girls belonging to different troops. SWAPS is "Special Whatchamacallits Affectionately Pinned Somewhere", or is also known as "Shared With A Pal" or "Sharing With a Purpose". These cute arts and crafts are exchanged with the girls of other troops and depict the purpose of promoting friendship between the troops.
Brief History of Girl Scout SWAP
The tradition of SWAP is said to originate from Native Americans. They used to swap colored feathers as a symbol of friendship at the Potlatch ceremonies. It is said that two Native American girls plucked colored feathers of a magical bird and gifted them to a colorless bird, to ensure that all the birds are colorful. In the remembrance of these two girls the Potlatch ceremony is said to be celebrated. Later Potlatch ceremonies were held on various occasions like wedding, birth and other celebrations. At the end of this ceremony gifts were given to the guests by the hosts. The very first official SWAP took place in Jamboree, England. This was held to cheer up the hospitalized boy scouts who could not attend the Boy Scout at Jamboree. The SWAP was arranged between the healthy boy scouts and the hospitalized boy scouts. The Girl scout SWAP originated at the National Roundup conferences.
Ideas for Girl Scout SWAPs
SWAPs are handmade crafts that are traded between girls of different troops and are used as a special remembrance of friendship. A SWAP can be simple, economic or too complex and expensive. It is not mandatory to spend a lot of money on it and usually they are made from simple materials. These SWAPS have pins attached to them so that they can be pinned to the bags, clothes, hats or uniforms of the girl scouts. These SWAPS sometimes bear the name, troop name, e-mail address of the girl who trades it. The rules and regulations of swapping may differ from troop to troop. Let us take a look at some simple but elegant girl scout SWAP ideas.
Fingerprint
The materials that you will require are:
- Craft Foam (light colored)
- Safety Pin
- Ink Pad (water based)
- Make small circles on the craft foam with help of a template, like bottle cap and cut them out properly.
- Press your thumb on the ink pad and gently press it on the circular foam.
- Attach a safety pin to the foam.
The materials that you will require are:
- Wiggle Eyes
- Plaster of Paris
- Red and Black Paint
- Glue
- Spoon
- Flat Back Pin
- Prepare the mixture of plaster of paris and pour it into a spoon.
- Once the plaster of paris has dried, remove it from the spoon and paint it like a lady bug.
- Attach wiggle eyes to the lady bug and glue a flat back pin to it.
The materials that you will require are:
- Craft Foam (bright colored)
- Glue
- Flat Back Pin
- Black Marker
- Cut the colored foam to form the shape of sun glasses.
- With the help of black marker color the lenses.
- Attach a flat back pin to its back.
The material you will require are:
- Craft Foams (Red, Green, Yellow, Tan, Brown)
- Glue
- Safety Pin
- Draw triangle shapes from yellow and tan craft foam to form a shape like pizza slice.
- Attach the yellow foam over the tan foam.
- Then, cut small pieces of remaining craft foams (red, green, brown) and stick these pieces randomly on the yellow foam.
- Attach a safety pin at a corner of the pizza slice.
The materials that you will require are:
- Craft Foam (Red and Black)
- Glitter
- Tiny Transparent Bag
- Safety Pin
- Cut out hat and carrot nose shape from the black and red colored craft foam respectively.
- Put these cut outs in the tiny transparent bag and add white glitter in the bag.
- Attach safety pin at the end of the bag.
