The New Pond

It was enrollment week this week, and the new pond was finished in time. It also fits in our big cupboard which is a relief.

The total cost came in at around £10 and it is built to last a long time. The back is securely fastened with duck tape, and the mirror is lovely and shiny, with the letters showing nice and clearly. We had flowers and leaves scattered around the pond, and I’m quite liking another Brownie tradition I’ve heard of which I’ll come to in a bit.

So here’s the pond! Minus the leaves unfortunately as we had to get into the ceremony so I didn’t get a picture this term.

I love this tradition and want to start it next term. Each Brownie is given a pebble to put their name on and decorate. When it is promise time, the new Brownie puts their pebble by the pond alongside all the others. When they leave they take their pebble with them, so it’s something which lives with them throughout their three years at Brownies.

We have 30 Brownies and a (hopefully) big enough pond.

Looks like I’m going to have to have a trip to the seaside (such a shame 😉 ).

Twist Me and Turn Me and Make a new Pond…

It’s Enrollment week next week at Brownies, and our pond is looking a bit old… and a bit like a tin foil cooking tray (because it is). At the end of last week’s meeting I mentioned this to Tawny Owl, who agreed we should get a new one.

So inspired by some of the Brownie Facebook Groups I did some research… and our new pond is in the process of being made! Even better, it doesn’t cost much other than time.

I wanted to keep it simple. To try and use any old elements of the last pond (there are some leaves we could reuse, for example, Tawny Owl suggested) but make it look and feel like a pond.

Ebay was my first success – some mirror board which is nice and bendy, so no chance of broken mirrors in our cupboard (which is likely as our cupboard needs a good tidy). An A4 piece of acrylic mirror which is 3mm thick, and cost £3.73 with free shipping. Looking good!

A lunchtime trip to Tiger Stores and OH MY GOSH! They have some Grass Table Runners for sale at £3 each. I bought two. This is perfect!! (they wrecked my scissors though, so if you get some use a knife)

Then I just needed some letters to add to the mirror. Poundland had some nice sparkly ones – I think I’ll only be doing the ‘I looked in the water and there saw….” part so bought enough to do that – cost £1.

Then it was just getting some MDF to put this lovely new pond on. Fortunately there is a yard over the road from my work so I headed there and got an offcut of 60cm x 60cm. I asked how much, but they donated it for free! So very kind of them and much appreciated – so far the total cost for this pond is £7.

Then all I had to do was work out where the mirror would go. As it hasn’t arrived the grass hasn’t been completely glued down yet. I had some Tiger Stores Hyldepapir with leaves on, so thought it would make a good background for now, and if the mirror wasn’t big enough (it should be!).

The biggest issue was finding a glue strong enough. The Tiger Stores grass is tough to cut and even tougher to stick. This isn’t glue gun territory, it’s proper heavy duty glue territory. Fortunately we had some in the cupboard at home. I taped down the grass underneath with some Duck Tape (as it’s nice and strong) and we glued the top in place, not too close to the edges. For added strength Shaun placed all our heavy books on top (mainly old Brownie and Guide annuals from the 1970s and 1980s). So now we have to wait…

Oh, and I need to tidy up those ends too… the grass was messy while cutting it but seems to be sticking together and not falling off now. I’ll post another update when we’ve finished the job – there’s still some way to go!