Stadium Pillows
Stadium pillows are a fantastic project for any troop of any age. While my directions mention a football design, you can customize it for any sport and use any combination of colors to represent either professional, local teams or the girls’ school colors. The project is designed to be glued together, but if your girls are older you could easily alter the directions to sew the seams of the stadium pillows instead of glue.
Want to share photos of your troop and finished projects? Contact Us!
Materials Needed:
- Large white tote bag
- Iron on letters in team colors
- Tulip Dimensional Fabric Paint – Slick White and Slick Brown
- Black fabric marker
- Ribbon of choice in team colors
- Poly-fil or pillow form
- All-Purpose glue
- Iron
- Scissors
- Pencils
- Paintbrush
- Paper Towels
- Paper Plate
Directions:
- Reference this post from Scrapbooking.About.com for a football pattern.
- Cut the tote bag along the side to open.
- Cut one handle from the bag.
- Draw a football with the pencil in center of tote.
- Have an adult follow the directions on the letters and iron the letters onto the tote to say “Go Team”.
- Pour out a small amount of the brown and white paints onto a paper plate. Use a paintbrush to fill in the football design and let dry. Use white to make side and center lines.
- Using white slick paint bottle, draw stitch marks on the ball. Let dry.
- Glue sides of tote together, let dry.
- Fill opening with pillow form or Poly-fil and glue closed.
- Glue ribbon along sides and top of tote.
Safety Tips!
- Adults only should handle the iron and iron on the lettering.
- Adult supervision is required.
Connie and Two YWOD Share Views on Leadership at Vision 2020 Conference
GSUSA National President Connie L. Lindsey participated last week in Vision 2020’s national conference, An American Conversation About Women and Leadership. The conference, held October 21–22 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, was comprised of nationwide representatives and various experts who discussed, debated, and developed an agenda to accelerate women’s leadership and equality in the decade to come.
During a panel discussion entitled “Philanthropy, Faith & Volunteerism,” an audience member asked, “How do you address the growing concern of women who are ‘burning out’ because of their service on boards?” to which Connie responded, “When I joined Girl Scouts’ National Board five years ago, the first question I asked was what is the ask?” She continued, “The size of your love for any organization should be matched with an impactful contribution to that organization. … It’s also important to have the courage, capacity, and the cash when thinking about which board you commit yourself to serve on.”
A gifted orator, Connie responded to a question about how one remains grounded as she/he moves up the ladder of success by asking audience members to raise their hands if they’d ever been a Girl Scout. (Dozens of hands rose.) Connie then smiled and said, “As you can see, one must have a clear foundation and a clear understanding of who one is. … We don’t all have to strive to be CEOs, and we must understand that our self-worth is not based on our net-worth.”
Along with Connie, who represented her hometown in Illinois, two Girl Scout National Girl Consultants, Morgan (2009 National Young Woman of Distinction honoree) and Natalia (2008 National Young Woman of Distinction honoree), participated in the event as national delegates, representing Georgia and Wisconsin, respectively. Connie, Morgan, and Natalia were selected from more than a thousand people who registered to nominate or become Vision 2020 national delegates. The search for delegates focused on finding women who have demonstrated a commitment to helping women and girls. These delegates were willing to mobilize resources to bring about positive change and implement elements of the decade-long Vision 2020 agenda, signing on for a minimum three-year term following the conference.
View the archived Webcast of Vision 2020’s: An American Conversation About Women and Leadership.
CONTACTS:
Girl Scouts of the USA
Shonda Prince, 212-852-8534
sprince@girlscouts.org
Girl Scouts of Northern California – Save Your Camps!
This is a guest post by Janeen Vitalie-Shember from Girl Scouts of NorCal-Save Your Camps!
It started out as a group of us at a service unit team meeting lamenting – of course! What we were lamenting was that the Girl Scouts of Northern California was reviewing all of our camp properties and talking about mothballing them, or worse, selling them. And while our Council Delegate was talking about all of the questions he’d been asked to present to us, and how small the delegate participation had been on the Council-run conference calls to talk about the situation, we realized that we really didn’t have a voice at all. We realized that there were thousands of us in the Northern California Council, with a couple of dozen Council Delegates to represent us, of which only a handful had called to participate in this crucial discussion.
So like every good Girl Scout, I decided to “take action”. I set up a Facebook group – Girl Scouts of NorCal-Save Your Camps! What better way than to provide a forum for everyone to come together to share thoughts and ideas, get connected and be heard. Then I started to spread the word, starting with my Facebook friends, troop families and spreading out to all of the leaders in my service unit. Those leaders told their troop families and friends. And soon Girl Scout leaders and alums, parents and husbands, were joining the group to show their support and share their belief that our camps are a precious commodity to be preserved.
As more and more people have joined the group, it has become an easy access point for information – Marina Park is a member of the group and posts regular updates and links to Council data. We have had discussions of solutions to the maintenance “gaps” at our camps – and have seen the launch of the “Tents and Trails” campaign. It’s been exciting to read people’s stories of their own camp experiences, and their wishes for their own daughters to have the same experiences.
In a few short months the group has grown to 194 members, and there is plenty of room to grow. I’ve set the challenge – 250 members by Labor Day. So if you feel passionately about camping, the outdoors, and the Girl Scouts’ heritage of custodians of open spaces, join – post – spread the word – be heard.
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