Trading Pins for Camp Lanyards

The stake put us in charge of coming up with some trading pins (like at Disneyland) for the girls to trade while at girls camp. At first the task was extremely daunting, but here's what I came up with.

First of all I created a lanyard so I could see how they would wear.

So Basically I created 4 different types of pins. The first was a simple wooden disk that I stained a dark walnut finish and modge podged images printed out on photo paper onto it. 

The next type of pin I created was a shrinky dink pin. Click here for a quick tutorial. These were by far the most fun, but also by far the most frustrating. They are unpredictable as they shrink squirming around like little sea creatures, so a few out of every batch bit the dust. Also the color of the image can be very unpredictable. Certain images became so dark they were unusable, for example my golden yellow turned to brown. So in the end I ended up just using the images that were successful and skipping the ones that weren't. The ink from my printer also kept smearing even after they baked so I had to add a sealer. I also had fun adding just a little gold leafing to one of the giraffes. The Shrinky dink paper can be found at Micheal's in both white and clear. Here's just a few of my shrinky dinks:

 The 3rd type of pin I created was just a letter B for Brave. I took a gold paint pen and wrote brave across the tall part of the B. The B's came unfinished at Micheal's and I stained it dark. 

The last type of pin I created was a paper rose pin inspired by a talk I read about the refiners fire and how every rose has it's thorn. Basically the idea is that in order to get anything that is beautiful or worthwhile you must pass through adversity.

I was able to find pin backs and E6000 at Micheal's. I also have one more pin idea up my sleeve, but haven't got to it quite yet! 

FUN, FUN, FUN!

Here are some other in ideas we came up with before leaving for girls camp.

My son helped me come up with this heart Friendship pin pin. He made a gold heart shape by sketching out a pixelated heart first.

The puzzle piece was actually one of my favorite pins. I used a 50 piece puzzle from the dollar store and spray painted over it. I made some attempt to put friends next to each other and mothers and daughters next to each other so that their puzzle pieces would actually connect, but the idea was that every girl was important to the whole. None of us are complete when anyone is missing. I gave out the extra puzzle pieces to people at camp such as our ward camp cook.

The flowers were made out of white shrinky dink paper and an orange and yellow shapie to create the centers. I used my flower punch to pop the shape out. If you take out the flowers before they are able to shrink all the way, then they come out slightly shaped and 3D

The butterflies were also a favorite and super easy. I just used some fun paper, gems, my butterly punch and some clear coat to protect the paper and water proof it somewhat. 

SO MUCH FUN!

For a quick how to on Shrinky Dinks Click Here

For more YW Camp ideas Click Here