Girls Camp Charm Necklace

Girls Camp was last week and I survived it with my sweet three-month-old in tow. It helped that Bob came along with me. It was good for those young women to see a happily married couple working together in so many ways. It was also wonderful for us to take Graham on his first ever camping trip. That baby is such a wonder to have! He's so happy and well-tempered, and only fussy when he's hungry or tired. We're so incredibly blessed.

Me hiking with my sweet baby boy.

So back to Girls Camp! If you don't know, it's a church camp we do each summer. The girls age 12-17 are all invited to attend, and if they go they learn outdoor survival skills, play fun games, make cute crafts, grow spiritually, and strengthen friendships with all of the other young women in the area who are members of our church. I went each year when I was a young woman and I loved it!

I went as a leader this year (for the fourth time). It's a totally different experience than when I was 14 or 15! Still a very good one, though. My dear friend Vanesa planned nearly all of camp this year on her own. I jumped in to help as much as I could and to take a load off her shoulders. She put me in charge or crafts as well as helping to plan and organize the week.

One of our hopes for this year's camp was that the girls would have a desire to participate in each of the activities we planned. To do that, I had the idea of making a charm necklace for each young woman. As they participated in activities and did various things throughout the week, they would earn a charm to add to their necklace. I spent hours and hours coming up with what exactly they could earn charms for, designing and making the charms, and then putting the necklaces together. But I love making jewelry, so it was like therapy for me. 

Here's the end product if they earned every charm.

After doing some math, I'm happy to say that these necklaces cost under $6 each! 

(That's excluding labor--I charged for the cost of the supplies only.) 

At the end of the week we asked what they did and didn't like about camp this year, and we got some great feedback. A few of them talked about the charm necklaces specifically. They all seemed to love them! It really did motivate them to take part in lots of activities and try things they didn't want to. Oh, how wonderful that made me feel! It was well worth all of the time and energy I put into not just those things, but into everything I did to plan and prepare for Girls Camp this year.

Maybe we'll see more of these in the coming years...