Cub Scout Patch Sash...can I trademark that?

Yeah, the name. Cub Scout Patch Sash...can I trademark that? Food for thought.

My son the cub scout has outgrown his red patch sweatshirt and decided he doesn't want the red windbreaker jackets the pack purchased for the boys. These jackets are handy for outings, and for the boys to proudly display the patches they receive from various outings, activities, community service projects, etc. I find this very odd, as he's an avid patch-shower-offer and he's clearly outgrown the red patch sweatshirt he keeps wearing over and over again. It's every boy's envy when he wears it to school and quite the conversation starter when we go to the store and he's wearing it.

I suggested maybe a red vest as other boys have sported in the past, but he didn't like the idea. He decided on a sash, very much like the green sash his older Boy Scout brother wears for his Merit Badges. Now, he's decided this a few weeks back and with Blue & Gold around the corner, it's time for this busy momma to get to work. So off to Joann's we went to select the fabric for the sash. Luckily a yard is all I needed, and at $5.99 a yard, and my 50% off coupon, it cost me a whopping $3.00 plus tax.

I simply cut two strips of fabric to the desired width, and sewed them together. Then I hemmed the edges, and cut the length to fit my son's body (this part is pretty forgiving since it hangs from the shoulder, across his body to the opposite side.

I then pressed it.

And after trying it on his body, sewed the seam at the bottom end in an angle as seen below.

Then it was time to sew on all the patches, making sure to leave plenty of space for his Sports and Academics pins towards the top of the sash.

Side note: Notice this Warstone patch. He earned this at a weekend campout where Duncan had the Guinness World Book of Records there in an attempt to break a record. My son participated in this event. They wanted to break the record for the most people participating in a marble tournament...and they broke it!! So now my son's name will be on this record and it was just recently recorded in the books. FYI, he's quite ambitions and the overachiever...he had told me about 8 months prior to this event that he wants to break a world record one day. I reminded him after this event, and told him he can check that off his bucket list!

And we're ready! He'll be so excited to see this in the morning.

Here it is all finished up and  posing next to its big brother the Boy Scout sash. Buuuuut, it's almost all filled up with patches. Back too! So I guess we'll make more and overlap them over one another. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. At least he has something to wear to Blue & Gold now to display his patches.

Blue & Gold Banquet campfire centerpieces

Campfire Centerpiece
picture by Crafts by Amanda blog

It feels as though today wasn't very productive in the "do-something-creative-daily" kind of way, because I didn't create something. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that looking for ideas to create something is in fact "doing something creative". So here is my creative something for the day.

A few years back I became a Boy Scouts. No, I'm not a boy. I'm a girl. But once my sons decided Scouting was their thing, I had to get involve and become a committee member, then the secretary, then the committee chairperson, then a den leader. I've been through various Scout Leader training sessions, summer camps, pinewood derbies, and know more about camping than I ever wished to. Being a boy scout wasn't exaclty something I was aspiring to be when I was growing up. Never quite made it on my bucket list, ya know. But so the joys of being a parent brings us to do things we never thought possible...like going for 3 days without a shower, in 100 degree weather. Eeeeewwwww!! But 'nuff about that.

So, in cub scouting we have an annual banquet called Blue & Gold (as in the uniform colors), where the boys usually create centerpieces and in the case of our pack, napkin rings as well. Our theme this year is "Back to Basics" since last year was the 100th Anniversary of Boy Scouts of America and we WENT ALL OUT. This year, not so much. Whew!

I interviewed a few boys and asked the question. "What does boy scouts mean to you?" Answers: camping, hiking, outdoors! You know, anything that requires no showering for a while...ok, just kidding. They didn't really say that, but I know what they're thinking those boys. So I found the above cute centerpiece idea at Crafts by Amanda's blog, themed around a campfire and adopted it as the centerpiece for our banquet this year. I'll gather up all the supplies this weekend (hello Michael's, it's me again) and we'll be working on these next week at our den meeting.

Will post the finished product then. Stay tuned.

Pinewood Derby...what shall it be this year?

2010 Pinewood Derby- IPOD

My boys are 13 and 9. They have both been in cub/boy scouts since the first grade. The Boy Scouts of America offers a plethora of opportunities to learn values, good morals, and all that boy stuff I was not born with instinctively.

One of those activities the cub scouts enjoy every year is the Pinewood Derby. For Pack 621 in Rancho Cucamonga, CA, it usually takes place in January. And this year is no exception. It's always quite the project trying to decide what to turn this wonderfully, solid, block of wood into something super creative, aerodynamic and unbelievably so fast that it not only wins the race, but some sort of "award". Most creative, fastest, slowest, scariest, etc.

A tid bit of history...last year we bought our little Pinewood Derby kit from the BSA (Boy Scouts of America) office in Ontario, CA. And for weeks we googled our brains for some creative idea until finally deciding on a bottle of Tapatio...on wheels mind you. So I took an inventory of tools in my head and decided one day, it's time. My son, 8 years old at the time, and I, took that block of wood out of the BSA box, got my sandpaper out of the "big girl tool box" in the garage and started sanding away. Ha, ha, ha....30 minutes later and the block of wood still looked like a perfectly, rectangular, block of solid wood. I pulled my "big girl tool box" out and started scowering for "bigger tools". Used a hand saw...no luck. Not a significant dent. At that rate, the race would come and go and still no car for us. Hey, I wasn't a boy scout growing up. I don't know this stuff.

Hand in pain, we went back into the apartment and sat on the couch, googling (the internet this time), for a rectangular something we can turn this block of wood into. I finally concluded that I could get someone to at least cut this rectangle into a wedge for me. A rectangle can't possibly win us a race, we needed at least a wedge. Maybe my parents neighbor, a retired gentleman who spends hours upon end making rocking horses in his garage. Yes, a wedge should be pretty easy. Luckily, at work the next day I laughingly retold the above story to my assistant. Turns out her dad does woodworking, made some cabinets for their home, and is retired. She offered to take the block of wood to her dad and have him cut it. And cut it he did. Into a perfectly shaped...wedge.

And so, with lots of creativity, we settled on creating an IPOD. A green IPOD with a dial painted on it and a picture of Jack Johnson's Bubble Toes song on the screen.

My 8 year old won 3rd place for the Wolves category (2nd grade cub scouts). Even got a little ribbon pin which he proudly wears on his uniform. Yay!

I didn't have the heart to tell him there were only 3 Wolves racing last year. But he figured it out at some point during the year. My poor little guy :(

So, creative wheel is turning for some ideas for this year's race. Pinewood Derby kit in hand. We have some ideas in mind and started a pinewood derby mood board. Will make a decision tonight and will report soon enough.

2011 Pinewood Derby Wood Block