Sit-Upons for Girl Scouts

I'm a Girl Scout Leader for my girls' Daisy Troop. They are in their 2nd year, so this year they were old enough to experience a little of what camp would be like. I didn't think they were ready for an overnight trip, but we went out to the site for the day and visited older scouts.

Along with exploring nature, learning about camp life, and participating in a scavenger hunt, I wanted a couple other projects pertaining to camping. Since this is also my first experience with Scout camping, I spoke with a few other leaders and learned about sit-upons. Evidently, it's a universal rule that no scout ever sit in an adult's chair or seat. It all boils down to fairness and equality....if one girls steals her mom seat and the other girls are left sitting on the ground, it's just not fair and could show favoritism. So.....the creation of sit-upons!

I chose to make them out of vinyl table cloths. I bought new ones (all matching to avoid fighting over certain designs), but finding gently used ones at thrift stores would be a great option, too).

I folded them in half, just eye-balling how big they'd need to be for tiny little butts to sit upon. I left a little over hang because I intended to sew strips into carrying straps, but later decided against it.

I then cut them width-wise just equally dividing the table cloth.

Here's a shot with the strap portion detatched

So, now we're left with square(ish) fabric that is folded along the bottom (so no sewing required there), that needs to be sewn up 2 sides, stuffed, and then sewn along the top.

I opted to sew the two sides ahead of time at home and then have the girls stuff their own sit-upon with news paper and sew along the top with yarn at our meeting. Real simple, I just turned them inside out and sewed up the two sides.

For the remaining top side, we used a hole punch to punch holes for the girls to sew yarn into. This was a little hard....not sure I'd recommend it. I think having the girls use duct tape or taking them home to sew after stuffing, would have been better.

Speaking of the stuffing. We just used newspaper. I let the girls choose whether they wanted just a couple layers of flat papers (to protect against the cold ground) or if they'd like to crumple them up for a more cushioned affect. I was leaning more towards just flat layers, so the sit-upon would be easier to just fold up and carry in their back packs.

Then I let the girls apply scrapbooking letters to spell their name. I went over the names with a layer of modge podge to help it stay. Time will tell if they hold up!