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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Our Fellow Collectors
Thanks to all the folks who submitted photos of their collections to earn a girl
scout “The Collector” badge. Here are a few highlights…
