I’m not getting much focus done on writing this week beyond the bare minimums. It’s been hard enough staying on top of what I wanted to do in the writing-wise let alone come up with additional pithy thoughts on the latest workbook exercise, but maybe Wednesday after all the whirlwind of activity is done with this Cub Scout filled week.
Wednesday night we sanded and stained the plaques to hold each boy’s Arrow of Honor and started wrapping the shafts of the arrows with embroidery floss to commemorate which major activities they’ve done as a scout so far. I finished wrapping DS’s career arrow yesterday and realized that I’d done it wrong but if I’d put a white divider between every color stripe it wouldn’t have fit on the shaft. It just barely did as it was. Taking his old uniform apart and putting all the old patches and pins on the plaque will be time consuming, but it’s not unheard of for them to sit in a state of “in progress” on the dining room table for several months after this point.
This morning, I ran back down to council to pick up the Quality Unit patches that finally came in (I don’t know why they don’t order a similar number to the amount they sold the previous year, but they’re perennially short). Sunday we’ve got the dinner and cake bake. I still haven’t done anything about that yet. I think we’re going to make a teepee cake, we’ll see how that goes since I’ve never played with fondant before. And Tuesday is the big “graduation to boy scouts” ceremony. How sad is it I had to send email to the new scoutmaster for DS’s new troop to tell him he’d misplaced one of our boys into another group?
I’m looking forward to the 11th as a quieter day. My mom leaves on the 14th, but life should settle back to a normal level of chaos next Wednesday. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.
ETA: I’ve noticed a lot of people have found this post looking for how to do their own arrows. I went looking too and there isn’t really much out there, is there? Ok. So a quick run down of how we did ours… Starting about a half inch from the flight (the feathers), the pattern can be worked in this manner:
| 3/4″ | Orange for Tigers |
| 1/4″ | White divider |
| 3/4″ | Dark Blue for Bobcat (or whenever they earned it, it’s often first now) |
| 1/4″ | White divider |
| 3/4″ | World Conservation (Purple, 1/8″ yellow in the middle, Purple) or whenever they earned it |
| 1/4″ | White divider |
| 3/4″ | Red for Wolf |
| 1/8″ | White divider |
| 1/4″ | Gold or Yellow for 1st Arrow Point earned |
| 3/8″ | (1/8″ White divider and 1/4″ Silver for each silver arrow point earned as a Wolf Cub) |
| 1/8″ | White divider |
| 3/4″ | Aquamarine for Bear |
| 1/8″ | White divider |
| 1/4″ | Gold or Yellow for 1st Arrow Point earned |
| 3/8″ | (1/8″ White divider and 1/4″ Silver for each silver arrow point earned as a Bear Cub) |
| 1/8″ | White divider |
| 3/4″ | Tan for Religious Award or whenever they earned it |
| 1/8″ | White divider |
| 3/8″ | 1/4″ Slate Grey followed by 1/8″ white divider afterward for first three Webelos Activities to earn Webelos Badge |
| 3/4″ | Navy for Webelos Badge |
| 1/4″ | Slate Grey followed by 1/8″ white divider afterward for next four Webelos Activities to earn Compass Patch |
| 3/4″ | Compass Patch (Light Blue, 1/8″ red in the middle, Light Blue) |
| 3/8″ | 1/4″ Slate Grey followed by 1/8″ white divider afterward for each additional Webelos Activities earned (up to 13) |
| 3/4″ | Yellow for Arrow of Light |
As for HOW we wrapped them. You start with a dab of tacky craft glue (Aleene’s works well) on the shaft, lay the embroidery floss in it and turn the arrow so the floss covers the shaft. Cut at the desired length and glue that end down. Your fingers will get a bit sticky. After a while, you get to know how many turns it’ll take to reach the 1/4″ mark. Other people have done theirs with paint or colored tape, use what suits you and you think looks good.
So for my son’s arrow, we had 17″ between the flight and the arrowhead. Even omitting the arrow points for space and the religious award he didn’t earn, it should have taken 14.5″ for everything as described as he earned all 20 Webelos Activitities. As you can see in the picture at the top, we also forgot to do the white dividers between everything but the Webelos activities, and it just barely fit. The wrappings on his came out to 15.5″ Measurements likely won’t be exact, expecially if you’re sitting around talking while doing these.
Anyway, I hope that helps someone out there!
Congratulations on one of your son’s life milestones. Sounds like he’s got a good grounding. 🙂
Kaige–I am in total awe of some of the things you do. The structure spreadsheet? The story diary wiki? You’ve always been headed in the right direction. It’s just hard to tell until you get where you’re going.
Thanks, Jodi. I’ll pass on the congrats to the boy. Boy Scouts should prove to be rather interesting in comparison.
And as for the rest… *blush* It means a lot to me coming from you.
I’ve done a lot of exploring in the last year and a half (doesn’t SEEM that long!) and much of it has seemed like feeling my way in the dark, but I think just writing more than a paragraph or two of description at a time or setting up the code and dialogue for a quest has been the biggest part of the learning process.
Just putting it all together into one BIG package has been interesting. That and purposely bringing out a character along with their story as one thread instead of setting up little set pieces that provide an emergent character and plot if you choose to look close enough.