Merit Badges: Crafty & Clever
Backyard Fun
A recent design gig for FamilyFun Magazine has me very excited about merit badges. They’re often a perfect little combination of recognition and aesthetics, and I just love ‘em. In this post I share my design for the Backyard Fun Badge and offer up a few other lovely merit badges from other artists and craft shops.
I was delighted to design the first of ten “Badges of Fun” for FamilyFun Magazine’s latest issue. They’re working with a number of designers to create a series of artful badges that you can download, cut out, and attach to a poster that tracks your progress. To earn this first badge, you can play twilight games, have a backyard camp-out, or make yard art.
Kids of all ages allowed!
Lee Meszaros, Amy Bowers, & Disorderly Goods
Lee Meszaros crafts beautiful merit badges and sells them in her etsy shop. She offers 60 different designs, each with its own sweet phrase.
They are silk-screened, hand-painted and embroidered. Here’s a quick sampling:
Mama Merit Badges are another creative twist on the same theme.
Amy Bowers created this series of badges to recognize the very hard work that is parenting – the “daily duties that alternately feel like drudgery, brave political acts, and absurd performance art.”
Disorderly Goods created a set of twelve creative merit badges for “excellence in life.” Here are my three favorites. Others depict unusual things like molecules and inkblots.
And finally, here’s a mosaic made out of thousands of scout badges by the Northern Star Council. Watch their time-lapse film below:
Do you know of other sources for creative merit badges?
Do you have a great story to tell involving badges you’ve given or received?
Post a comment and let us know about it!
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Very cool! My daughter puts hers on a poster board and saves them that way.
thanks for the mention! i am a huge fan of yours. we love our match box theatres!
I am a huge fan of these nerd merit badges and give them as presents to my coworkers.
http://www.nerdmeritbadges.com/
- wendy
Hi Lea,
I’m the editorial director over at FamilyFun, and I just wanted to say how excited we are about your badge. I’ve loved your work for a long time, and it’s a thrill to have you design our very first badge!
Ann
Forgot to mention this book I found when researching the history of merit badges–>You Can Do It!: The Merit Badge Handbook for Grown-Up Girls by Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas
For anyone interested in more interpretations of merit badges, this book offers many different types. I believe there are sticker badges at the back of the book, and if you search the book on Amazon, there are sample badges you can view.
How fun that you designed this! I just got our Family Fun magazine last week and fell in love with the concept.
Hi Lea, I just shared your Backyard Fun badge with my friends on Friday evening! We are all working on creating unique badges regarding our own individual goals. My badge will concern a concept–”Light”
My Doughnut Dreams Project has become sort of merit-badge-related. I create my dreams on a poster board circle, about the size of a dinner plate. I like the look and feel of a circle as the frame for my Art and my dreams.
I never earned a badge–except the one you generously offered for a picture of my children’s book collection : ). I want to design merit badges for a creative pursuit I am currently working out…Would love to collaborate with you, Lea! I know you’re a busy lady–would love to discuss the idea with you some day. I love your works, but more than your creativity, I love the heart and conscience behind all you do.
Thanks for sharing more merit badge images, as further inspiration. The “dreaming big” badge is great!