Young Cultivator Merit Badge: Toys, Intermediate Level

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 7,504 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—10,886 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ 

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life   

For this week’s Stitching and Crafting/Toys Intermediate Level Young Cultivator Merit Badge, I brought along a willing Nora and a not-so-willing Andy. Being the eldest, Andy thought he was far too old to be playing with toys, especially of the “girly” doll variety.

I wrangled him into submission with a stern talk about being young-at-heart forever (can I get an amen?), the promise that once his badge was earned he didn’t have to play with his creations if he really didn’t want to (cough, cough), and also a rather ginormous slice of apple spice cake with homemade whipped cream.

You know what they say, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

Or is it, the way to a man’s heart is through his ribcage?

Well, I’ve heard it both ways.

Anyway, to earn our Intermediate Level badges (Piper had earned hers earlier in the year and was patiently waiting for us to catch up), we needed to make some DIY paper dolls or finger puppets. Still nursing paper cuts from my experience with Piper, we settled on finger and sock puppets for Andy and Nora.

photo by Diablanco via Wikimedia Commons

Perfect for a rainy afternoon, I got out my basket of scrap material and the catch-all of abandoned and single socks I keep next to the dryer. You know the ones: hard to toss because you’re sure the mate is around here somewhere, but he’s probably off gallivanting in some sort of mid-life sock crisis, driving a convertible, and flirting with striped knee-highs and sophisticated argyles.

photo by Tony Alter via Wikimedia Commons

Having given up all hope of ever seeing their mates ever again, they were relegated to official Sock Puppet Status (except one polka-dotted thigh-high who had ambitions to be a Sock Monkey one day). Andy got to work, his tongue between his teeth in what I had learned long ago was standard Andy concentration mode.

Nora was more interested in the finger puppet variety (she loves her some miniatures), and she spent hours making families. A few different ways she experimented making her finger puppets were:

  • Felt. Lots of felt! Even if you don’t make the bodies out of felt, you’re going to want lots of color varieties for facial features and accessories. But if you do want to make the bodies from your felt collection, it’s easy: cut out tubular shapes slightly larger than your fingers and sew or fabric glue together.

  • Crochet or knit your finger puppet bodies.
  • Using pipe cleaners, twist very loosely around your fingers (you want to be able to remove them and put them back on again). Attach your heads made of felt to the tops using glue.
  • With construction paper or cardboard, cut out animals or people shapes. Punch two holes large enough for fingers to be inserted through in the bottom of each puppet. This will give your character “legs,” which can be quite hilarious in your puppet show.
  • Snip apart old gloves (remember when I mentioned my Lonely Hearts Sock Single Club in my laundry room? There’s another chapter in my hall closet, but for gloves). Use the separate fingers to decorate into puppets.

Don’t forget to add googly eyes, glitter, hats, sequins, etc. Decorating these are almost as much fun as playing with them afterwards. While Andy insisted his collection was being given away for Christmas gifts for his small cousins, I did notice he pocketed his favorite when he thought I wasn’t looking.

Don’t worry, Andy, real men CAN play with puppets! Think of all the Muppets! And just watch Fred Astaire and Edward Everett Horton playing with finger puppets in the 1934 film classic, The Gay Divorcee.

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Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is Kimberly Nelson!

Kimberly Nelson (kmnelson77, #3492) has received a certificate of achievement in Cleaning Up for earning a Beginner Level Shopping Green Merit Badge!

“For this merit badge, I had to acquire some reusable shopping bags. I’ve been using reusable bags for quite some time, but many of my bags needed replacing, so I picked up a few new ones so I had at least six. I also used a reusable bag I already had to hold all of my reusable bags and placed them in the bin in my car, so they are always with me on grocery shopping day.

Having the new bags has worked well. They are stiffer and stand up better for the person bagging my groceries. Having them all in one bag is easy to grab and having them in the car definitely helps to have them when you need them. No more, I forgot my bags at home!”

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Young Cultivator Merit Badge: Do Your Eyes Light Up? Intermediate Level

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 7,504 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—10,886 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! ~MaryJane 

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life

For this week’s Make It Easy/Do Your Eyes Light Up? Young Cultivator Merit Badge, I took advantage of my little helper-around-the-house extraordinaire, Nora. And by take advantage of, I mean taught a valuable life lesson.

What? You think I have an ulterior motive in my offer to babysit the little squirt? So cynical, dear reader! I would never!

Okay, maybe I would just a little. You see, I had misplaced my umpteenth tool for the last time. There’s never a hammer around when I need one, I haven’t seen my good flathead screwdriver since the summer of ’99, and when it comes to pliers … well, I know they’re around here someplace.

Nora loves a good organization project, and she was old enough now to teach the basics of a good toolbox. After all, she’d be in shop class soon enough, building crooked birdhouses, sawing off fingers 2X4s, building benches that list to one side … Sunrise, sunset. *nostalgic sniffle*

Anyway, we had an afternoon to spend and I was in desperate need of my measuring tape. Total coincidence, I assure you. First, lovingly instruct the kiddo. If we find the missing measuring tape, just a happy accident. Ahem.

First, we organized what we could find. My toolbox was frightfully embarrassing, I don’t mind telling you. I mean, it made my junk drawer in the kitchen look posh and well-thought out. There was a spilled bag of zip-ties sprinkled throughout, bent nails, broken and busted halves of things, a couple dried up paintbrushes, a butter knife (don’t ask), and some dead flies. I bear no responsibility for those guys, though.

But alas, no measuring tape or my good flathead screwdriver. The mystery deepened and the plot thickened, kind of like a Thanksgiving gravy but less lumpy.

Part of earning her badge was to learn the names of said tools, but she already knew quite a few. This led to her shouting around the house with a wrench,

It was Professor Plum in the kitchen!

Sometimes it’s difficult to get the little whippersnapper to focus. We ate a snack to feed our brains and tummies and got back to work.

After cleaning out the toolbox (Nora insisted on affixing some glitter stickers to the outside), we arranged the tools back inside in a much less haphazard way than we had found them. We also had a small, but respectful, funeral and eulogy for the flies. Nora prepared a lovely speech and we sang a few hymns. We figured that was the least we could do since they were getting the rather undignified disposal of joining the dustbin debris.

We were still missing the aforementioned tools and I was starting to panic over the lack of a decent hammer in my life. I’ve pounded small nails in my walls with a shoe one too many times to find it clever and/or cute. Also, it’s hard on the shoes.

So, off we went on an excursion to the garage. You know, the dimly lit room where perfectly good tools go to die. Or at least become missing in action. Seriously! In action! Like right in the middle of popping open a tin of paint in ’99 and wham, bam, thank you ma’am, my flathead screwdriver disappeared without a trace.

I don’t feel like Dateline or Law and Order takes seriously enough the millions of missing tools around the world.

(Don’t even get me started on socks.)

After about an hour, we found one MIA tool. As Nora exclaimed as she held it high in triumph,

It was Aunty Jane in the garage with the hammer!

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Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is Marlene Laverty!

Marlene Laverty (#7503) has received a certificate of achievement in Farm Kitchen for earning a Beginner Level Cheesemaking Merit Badge!

“I made yogurt using my goats’ whole milk. I had a choice between using a yogurt culture or plain store-bought yogurt. I have to start with a bacterial culture to get the process going. I made my yogurt with 1 cup organic store-bought yogurt as a starter. I made sure the store-bought yogurt had live culture in it. I heated up a quart of whole milk to 180ºF to sterilize it and placed the pot of milk in a sink halfway filled with cold water to cool it down to 80ºF. Using a whisk, I mixed the milk slowly into the cup of yogurt. I have a Euro Cuisine yogurt maker with jars. It’s really just a covered hot plate with jars, but it keeps the milk and starter at the correct temp to get the cultures moving and growing. I poured the mixture into the jars. Twelve hours later (the longer the time, the more sour) … yogurt!

It turned out a little thin. Nice and sour and just a bit sweet. Great for granola! I will drain some of my yogurt to make Greek-style yogurt. Using a fine mesh sieve and butter muslin, the yogurt can be drained of most of the liquid to make a much thicker yogurt. All in all, very happy with the result. It’s great with honey and peaches too!”

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Young Cultivator Merit Badge: Let’s Go to Town, Expert Level

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 7,428 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—10,886 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! ~MaryJane 

Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life

For this week’s Each Other/Let’s Go to Town Expert Level Young Cultivator Merit Badge, Andy and I—you guessed it—went to town.

photo by James Steakley via Wikimedia Commons

If only earning Merit Badges were so simple …

Once we got there (several yard sales and snack breaks later), we headed over to our local library. Not for books this time, no siree, but to see what was thumbtacked up on the ol’ community bulletin board.

We saw:

  • Services from a pet psychic (Yeah. That’s all my chickens need. They already think they’re Marie Antoinette if their diva behavior is any indication.)
  • Tuba lessons (BYOT)
  • Something called Pickleball
  • Massage therapy for the ticklish
  • A seminar on DIY world domination
  • Matchmaking services for the romantically challenged
  • How to cook with inedible ingredients (say what now?)
  • Lost: guinea pig
  • Found: weird-looking rodent
  • Soccer for seniors
  • Conquer your fears through total immersion therapy (please sign waivers, provided)
  • Community theatre actors wanted
  • Underwater basket-weaving classes
  • Sign Language, Shakespeare, and You

There were probably lots more, but they were all stapled and scotch-taped and thumbtacked right over one another, all willy-nilly. I thought someone needed to offer a community class on the Proper Etiquette of bulletin-boarding, but Andy was all about … drum roll, puhleeze …

Pickleball!

To earn his Expert Level badge, Andy and I were going to choose three different after-school-type activities. He had already joined Band last week, and I wrangle him in to my Book Club meetings every third Thursday (I lure him with the scent of chocolate-chip cookies. Works every time. Little guy is cute, but he isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to noticing things. Ah well. He gets cookies and some literary education, to boot. Although, he wasn’t real fond of The Bridges of Madison County, and when it was his turn to pick the novel, he chose Sir Farts-A-Lot Eats the Booger as revenge. How childish. Although, I have to say, I secretly enjoyed the book).

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes. Pickleball was to be our third activity! We were both really excited. Andy because he likes balls, me because I love a good pickle.

Sadly (and you may be one step ahead of me on this), there were no vinegary cucumbers to be found when we got to the arranged meeting place. Instead, there were paddles, nets, plastic balls with holes in them, and a tennis court.

photo by Stephen James Hall via Wikimedia Commons

I was instantly suspicious. This looked like some sort of *gasp* SPORT.

Suddenly, I knew how Andy felt every third Thursday.

Putting my fear of all things sports-related aside for the greater good, I attempted learning the oddity that is pickleball. Turns out, I wasn’t really so bad. It’s kind of like ping-pong on a larger scale. And I’m happy to report one of the sports moms brought juice boxes and crackers, so I made it through a happy camper. And Andy earned his badge. He put it right next to his dog-eared copy of Captain Underpants (I think I know what we’re reading next month).

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Hear Ye!

Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)

Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)

My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is Teresa Roberson!

Teresa Roberson (carolinacateyes, #7386) has received a certificate of achievement in Cleaning Up for earning an Expert Level Recycling Merit Badge!

“My recycling system at home runs like a well-oiled machine! I have been successfully recycling at home for months now. In late July, I enlisted my granddaughter, age 12, to recycle. She has recently moved from the city back out to the country, where there is no garbage pickup, but a recycling/garbage convenience center is nearby. We set up four cardboard boxes on the back porch; one for newspapers, one for plastics, one for aluminum cans, and one for rinsed metal cans. Rachel also recycles plastic shopping bags to return to Walmart. No, I still can’t convince her to use fabric bags! I periodically visit and can’t help but see her progress; she tends to hyper-focus on things that interest her. She has even decorated a couple of her boxes! She also has recruited her aunt, maternal grandmother, and maternal great-grandmother to recycle as well. Occasionally, her dad will drop off a bag of glass items at my work location for me to recycle at my convenience center. I also collect the shredded paper and the cardboard boxes from work to recycle just down the street from my office.

As I travel from school kitchen to school kitchen in my county, I see so many items that could be recycled if anyone cared to listen and act responsible. When I retire next year, I think this will be my mission. My school district needs to set the example by recycling instead of collecting garbage for a landfill. At least Rachel is on the right track, and she has others doing the same. She talks about recycling with her friends and teachers at the middle school. Hopefully, the younger generation will get on board to save this planet one metal can, one plastic bottle, one plastic bag, one cardboard box at a time.”

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