LeafClutter

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!

Thanks to all the folks who submitted photos of their collections to earn a girl

scout “The Collector” badge. Here are a few highlights…

I have stumbled upon a stash of vintage girl scout “The Collector” badges. So. I have an idea:

EMAIL ME a photo of a collection you create and I will send you one of these special badges to commemorate your gathering. (Email: lea@leafcutterdesigns.com. I have only 20 badges available. Include your mailing address in the email.)

You need not follow the original girl scout program to earn the badge, but isn’t it fun to see?

Here are two examples of collections. The first is my collection of vintage feature matchbooks. Feature matches are ones where the matches themselves are printed, often in very imaginative and sweet ways.

Second is my small collection of postal related items. Mostly vintage. The paper truck and mailbox are made from scans I took out of an old magazine. And notice the girl scout epistolary badge? The three tiny birdies with even tinier letters in their beaks were a 30th birthday gift from my mom last year: one for each decade.

What do you collect? I’d love to see!