SWAPS

SWAPs – has many meanings but my favorite is: Share with a Pal. When you are going to an event that requires SWAPS be creative. Every year at Camporee we had to bring SWAPS, but my first year as a leader I had no idea what they were. I recommend you make 10 at the LEAST. The girls will enjoy this activity so much you will wish you had more. As my troop got older they often made additional ones on their own just so they would have a larger variety of SWAPS.
SWAPS should have a way to be pinned on something, typically a hat. If your event has a theme, it’s always fun to follow that but if you settle for easy you may see several replicas of what you are handing out – many times we saw the same “camping” items year after year. After awhile the girls get bored with the same thing – smores, sleeping bag, flashlight and cookie boxes. I have to admit we had some really cute ones and often had girls seeking us out to swap.
My favorite was: I had a large dowel, cut it into many circles, we painted them varies skin tones, gave each a face and yarn hair adding bows to some, earnings, glued pins on the back along with a print out “CAMP – Came And Made Pals” with our troop # and names. The girls hardly wanted to swap with anyone because they loved each one they made, and they were all different.
For this I asked certain girls to bring a particular color yarn, 2 bags of pins, others variety of paint – it cost us nothing but a donated item from each girl. We had a meeting that was for a few hours on a Saturday so we started out sanding our wood, then painting. While that dried we worked on hair. I pre-made some examples of completed ones. Faces can be painted easy using q-tips for cheeks and eyes, no nose is needed.