A Girl Scout Mini-book

I recently decided to finish some scrapbooking projects that have been hanging around for years.  Years I tell you!  As I was searching the printed picture reserves and the electronic storage, I stumbled upon these pictures of a project completed back in 2008.  At the time I was the troop leader for my daughter's Girl Scout troop.  I had two wonderful co-leaders, sisters in fact.  One co-leader was none other than Keri McCleary- she who so prominently leads the blog hits for her crafty Bubble Guppies kid party.  Keri and I pooled our craft supplies and our crafty skills together to make a minibook for each of the girls in the troop.

The books are 6 x 6 format that we created from a 12 x 12 paper pad because we ultimately made nine of these mini-books, one for each troop member.  Most pictures were group shots, but there were certain individual photos for each scout too.  These pictures are of my daughter Katie's book.

It's fun to see how things have changed and how I've forgotten good tricks I'd learned then.  This flower felt border is fabulous even all these years later.

We tried to capture each of the fun events that had become a troop tradition.  The Holiday Bazaar was an opportunity for the kids to make and sell items for troop money.  It also gave the girls an opportunity to go shopping for gifts that family didn't see and thus would be a surprise.

I don't know if you noticed, but we inserted a smaller page over this double page layout with unique photos for each girl.

Buttons were apparently all the rage!

Another fun tradition was the Friendship Day celebration.  Each year the girls would spend weeks researching and learning about a country where Girl Scouts were established.  The troop would create a booth display to teach other girls about their country and then "work" the booth at a festival in February.  They also had a chance to go visit other booths and learn about different cultures and customs and about international Girl Scouts programs.

We had many troop meetings and always tried to include an overnight where we focused on earning badges.  These girls were fast friends who loved learning and trying new things.

The key to making nine or so of these types of mini-books is to keep it simple.  Lots of matting and titles and little embellishments.  Even all these years later, this is one of the projects I've done that I love the most.  Maybe that was Keri's influence...

I'm pretty sure anything silly or out of the box happened in spite of my seriousness.  These girls enjoyed each other immensely.  This page shows the four that were my daughter's age as the horse around at various events.

We even borrowed a replica uniform from our local council office.  The girls dressed up and we snapped photos... probably planning the book long before we thought it up.  You'll notice the handwriting is neat and legible- thank you Keri!

This is where I admit to my own problematic follow through.  We created these albums and gifted them to the girls on their bridging night at the end of their Brownie years.  We created this two page layout with the intention that they would place pictures from that night in this book.  Fully 5 years later my own daughter's pages remain blank.  What is seriously wrong with me?  Never fear, since taking these photos I've updated the album with photos and *finally* the book is complete.

The binding of the book had to be simple.  We also wanted to create a pocket to hold various memories.  Thus the back cover is actually a 6 x 12 piece of textured cardstock that we folded over and sealed on the bottom with some eyelets.  The girls put some of their papers collected over the years and extra photos that we had in this pocket.  All pages were hole punched and bound with 1 1/2 inch book binder rings.  Various ribbons and fibers were tied to the rings to decorate and obscure them.

Thank you for indulging my nostalgia.   Hopefully it inspires you.