Make Your Own Troop Crest

I’ll be honest – the past few weeks have been bummers Girl Scout-wise on many levels, but I’m looking forward to our Cadette camping trip to the GS Weekend at Chimney Rock next week.  The sun’ll come out… tomorrow!

Here’s a flashback Troop 20 post.  I haven’t done one of these in a while.

When we became Juniors, it was time for us to pick our own troop crest.  I was so excited to finally get one!  Being the Girl Scout nerd that I was at the time (because you know, I’m not one now), I remember looking over the available troop crests and wondering – would we have a bluebird?  Or a pine cone?  Maybe even a clover! 

So one meeting, Mrs. Vickers announced to us that we would be making our own troop crest!  You may be thinking, what a great idea!  But it haunted and followed me the rest of my Girl Scout days as a girl.

I don’t remember if we voted on it or if Mrs. Vickers picked it out, but we were to have a Daisy as our troop crest.  I thought, “Ugggghhhh… how boring.  EVERYBODY has a Daisy as their troop crest!”  So I was bummed from the beginning.  I’m thinking we did this as part of a badge requirement, so we used embroidery or stitching or some kind of whatever sewing technique to create it.  I don’t know.  As you can see, I learned so much from this project.  I’m just happy I can sew on buttons and patches today.  And I can kinda sew a hem.  Kinda.  It’ll be crooked, but the next time someone complains, they’ll get a hem made out of staples.  That’ll teach ’em.

Anyway, I really don’t remember a lot of what went into this, but I do remember mine starting off great but then descending into this lopsided flower that would have driven any OCD person crazy.  I became very frustrated about halfway through and wanted to quit or start over.  But I was told, “It looks great!  Keep going!”  And I finished.

What was once a great source of excitement turned into disappointment in this young Junior’s mind.  And as you know, once your troop has a crest, it’s yours for the rest of the troop’s existence.  So this sad Daisy flower followed me around the rest of my years.  I would gaze longingly at other troops with Bluebirds or Robins on their sashes.  Every once in a while, another Girl Scout would peer at my crest and say, “Ummmm… did you buy it looking that way?”  Even as a Senior, I was embarrassed to be wearing something that my 4th grade self awkwardly created in frustration.

But now that I’m 40-something, it doesn’t look so bad.  It kind of has a charm about it.

But it is lopsided.