old girl scout pictures
i used to collect old girl scout calendars. i have almost all of the calendars from 1952-1968. the pictures in them are just so dang adorable. i just ate a big bowl of samoa cookie ice cream so i thought i’d show you a few of my favorites. it was hard to choose just a few, but of course this one is my #1 favorite…
they’re screen printing their own fabric!
and look how cute it is!
there are alot of pictures of girl scouts with all different kinds of baby animals…
and lots of fun camping pictures, i like this one, singing around the campfire with an accordian and a ukelele.
and all kinds of cooking and crafting and sewing pictures…
what i wouldn’t do to get a piece of this awesome girl scout fabric!
February 12th, 2009 at 9:46 am
i am speechless! these are so cool.
i earned almost every merit badge possible. i still have my sash! but we never screen printed.
February 12th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
i’m not surprised, i can totally imagine you being a very industrious girl scout! i want to see a picture of you in your uniform!
February 12th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
oh my…that girl scout fabric is amazing!
February 12th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Samoa cookie ice cream?? I had no idea such happiness existed!
February 12th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
it doesn’t last very long around here! i guess they only sell it around girl scout cookie time. i also saw thin mint ice cream, i haven’t tried that one yet.
February 13th, 2009 at 8:20 am
That fabric is super hard to find – I’ve been looking for years. We had some curtains with that pattern at the Girl Scout Camp I used to work at and people were always trying to buy them, including me.
I’ve never seen these calendars before and I thought I was a die-hard scout. My friends buy me old G.S. handbooks from thrift stores and some of the descriptions are a hoot!
February 13th, 2009 at 8:24 am
What a fun post! I love the vintage pictures. And that fabric is great! I love the mom’s old sewing machine.
February 13th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
My aunt was in one of the calendars and on a box of cookies! how funny!
February 13th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Craaaaaaazy! I blogged a bit about girl scouts today too. I was a girl scout and I knew NOTHING about these calendars! Anywho..I think the calenndars are adorable. But even more important..Samoa ice cream? Death by overeating! Where do I score that?!?! I can’t wait til my cookies get here!
February 14th, 2009 at 11:57 am
i’m glad you like the pictures! there are so many good ones it was hard to choose.
i got the girl scout cookie ice cream at CVS! i saw it at the supermarket too. it’s made by dreyer’s/edy’s.
brook! which year was your aunt in? i might have it! that’s pretty awesome.
and tamera, i am so jealous that you actually saw that amazing fabric in real life!!
February 14th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
hey hannah! so glad to find you today on etsy. I LOVE your skirts! ah! I’ve always been interested in girlscouts over the years also, and have made many self portraits appropriating generic girl scout images. I always wanted to BE a girl scout as a kid, and I remember pretending I was one in our back yard. I was also fascinated by my mom’s 1950’s gs manual, and well…still am, i guess.
anyway, glad to find you!
February 17th, 2009 at 6:13 am
I have seen that fabric on ebay! Keep an eye out…
February 17th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Just spent some fun time perusing your creative blog and became your fan on facebook. I have many fun ric racs and fabrics saved up but don’t follow through any where near as often as you do. You’re a very creative person. I hope you are having as much fun as I think you are. best to you!
February 18th, 2009 at 8:32 am
FANTASTIC photos! Wow, I love that GS fabric, too. Wonder if there is any around someplace? I was a Brownie and a Girl Scout! And it would have been in the late 60’s early 70’s. I remember those uniforms and how exciting it was to put it on, especially when I started earning badges for the sash! Thanks for the memories!
February 20th, 2009 at 6:22 am
All you lucky Girl Scouts! I was not allowed. No cookie sale, no sashes or badges. Poor me! It so would have been right up my domestic alley. Glad I could live vicariously through these incredible pics! Glad to find your site, I’ve linked to you!
Ellen
February 20th, 2009 at 10:13 am
These photos rock and I would do unspeakable acts to get some of that fabric as well for my stash. : ) You are my Friday Featured blogger today. Enjoy your day in the mini- spotlight.
February 22nd, 2009 at 6:03 am
Wow. Took me right back to being a Brownie in the early 60s and learning to embroider. I accidentally sewed my tea towel to my uniform skirt and was so traumatized by having to pick it out that I didn’t embroider anything again for about 20 years.
The ice cream sounds like a good cure for Brownie flashback trauma, though.
February 25th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Those photos are priceless! I know we think they’re quaint and cute, but I bet lots of girls would love to get together with friends, craft, cuddle fluffy bunnies, and take part in all kinds of innocent activities. Children seem to inhabit such a stressful, noisy world today, we should be providing them with more space to just be kids.
March 1st, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Is that sewing machine a Singer Featherweight? Those are very popular now esp with quilters. Anyone else like to eat the thin mint cookies straight from the freezer?!! Though I was in scouts for several years has anyone ever thought of a scouts program for adults so we can earn (more) badges, eat smores and sell cookies?!!!!!!
March 4th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Oh these are just too adorable!!! I love that they are making their own curtains!
March 4th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
How adorable. I am still a Guide and I can tell you the kids I take away camping this weekend don’t look anything like that.
March 15th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
I was a die-hard scout. I’m even IN one of those calendars, 1962, I can’t remember the month, (May?) a bunch of us were walking into (or out of?) church in white gloves, I’m the blonde in braids in a Brownie uniform. Highpoint of my young life!! These are great photos, thanks for posting them! (Helplessly addicted to thin mint cookies here!)
March 20th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I really like girl scouts!
March 21st, 2009 at 6:28 am
These are so cool. My daughter will love checking this out. She is 6 and is a daisy this year.
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:09 am
Oh my goodness! I was thinking the same thing about this fabric. It is just wonderful!!
April 1st, 2009 at 11:41 am
I was looking for things to scrapbook my “old” picture in my “old” uniform and stumbled in this wonderful site. Thank you so much! Wish I would have collected and saved more. I am 63. Have most of my badges and pins. I love this. Sherry
April 4th, 2009 at 7:46 am
I’m actually looking for that fabric right now. My grandparents ran Camp Mintahama in MO for years and they also had curtains like that. My mom made a shirt out of them years ago and I just spotted it in my sister’s colset. hmmm… she is out of town… what does the girl scout law say about taking things from your big sister’s closet?
April 9th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Thank you for sharing these pictures. They are great!
April 16th, 2009 at 7:51 am
what amazing photos!!
May 27th, 2009 at 4:41 am
Oh! These are too fabulous for words! I’m green with envy ….
May 30th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Thank you for this website. It brings back wonderful memories. My troop loves looking at them too.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
the “curtain fabric” is currently on eBay. Someone listed 3 lots (1 yard each) two are still avail. the first one yard of fabric sold for over $60
July 15th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Great site. Wonderful pictures. Brings back wonderful memories of my scouting days in the south suburbs of chicago. I still have my badges and a few of my uniforms.
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Hi! I’m so glad you collect these…I’m actually looking for a girl scout calender picture and it’s black & white and it’s two girls lying in a field looking at some (or maybe just one) mushroom…do you happen to have it?
February 23rd, 2010 at 12:57 pm
that mushroom picture sounds cute! all the calendars i have are in color.
May 5th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Thank you so much for the photos. I found your photos after checking for the current Girl Scout and Boy Scout fabrics. Saw the beautiful Boy Scout fabrics in my quilt shop, and they were stunning. In researching the Girl Scout fabrics, I was extremely disappointed in the wild colored modern flowers, etc. with no sense of tradition as with the Boy Scout fabrics. Would love to have some of the gorgeous fabric shown here.
I sold calendars and cookies through the 60’s. How wonderful that you have old copies. Sure wish I did. Scouting changed a LOT from my scout days to my leader days in the 90’s.
My pins are still in my jewelry box, and my sash (with all my badges) is incorporated into a tee shirt quilt, along with my school “Letter” and the bodice of a prom dress. The blocks are joined with strips from clothing my grandmother made me, including fabric from the dress I wore to my first junior high dance.
Some of you mentioned seeing the fabric being used for curtains at camp. One of my most treasured photos is my best friend and me looking dorky in our camp uniforms at Camp Low Echo in Oregon. Just can’t remember the curtains!!!
Thanks again – did my old scout heart good!!
August 26th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
This is where you can get the fabric
http://www.robertkaufman.com/fabrics/girl_scouts/ags-10618-200/
October 7th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
Fabric ! check out Robert Kaufman. He has a line of GS Fabric including vintage that looks just like the drapes.
January 19th, 2011 at 11:22 pm
Hello if thee first picture is the first girl scouts calendar featuring the girl scouts then that is my mother her name was Catherine Brooks. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee. She is the African American girl in the middle thank you with tears in my eyes I say thank you.
February 23rd, 2011 at 1:58 pm
I have recently acquired some of the truly vintage fabric shown in the last photo. It was in storage at the girl scout council for years and years. It is NOT the Robert Kaufman fabric, but something heavier. Any suggestions on how I can sell it? I am trying to raise money for my Service Areas family partnership. The piece hasn’t been laundered and measures 72″ x 46″.
March 1st, 2011 at 6:03 pm
i wish i was a girl scout then imagine it
March 23rd, 2011 at 5:49 am
Being a girl scout was awesome even though we had to go out in -40C/F Canadian weather to sell those calendars! I have been collecting boyscout/girlscout shirts with badges for a few years and have just enough to customize a piece of boring brown/khaki clothing.
June 2nd, 2011 at 5:14 pm
LOVE IT!! Just like everyone else, I am loving that material — it was in our Kenosha WI Troop House. Thanks for sharing these photos!
December 16th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
Love the pics. Do you ever run into old pics from pennsylvania troop gatherings?
January 22nd, 2012 at 12:19 pm
Girl Scouts are 100 years old this year….. 2012. Go Girl Scouts.
I have wonderful memories of Scouting and am still a Scout as a volunteer. Right now I am chairman of our 100th Birthday Celebration and then I direct day camp in a local park for 50 girls. So all who loved Girl Scouts…get involved again. If we don’t teach them crazy camp songs, who will.
April 13th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
I’m trying to find any online resources for girl scouting. Our day camp theme this year is celebrating 100 years, and we thought it would be fun to try different traditions over the years, but I am having a really hard time finding resources. Is there anywhere online that you know about?
August 23rd, 2012 at 12:35 am
These pictures are really nice.
September 11th, 2013 at 10:54 am
I am a lifetime GS.I even have a 1940’s Brownie Manual. I am still involved with scouting today. Please call a local chapter and help these girls today. Things are so much harder then we ever dreamed of.The sewing machine is a much sought after Singer 221 featherweight.You can still find them on Ebay and are desired because they are light to carry and do the most perfect basic stitching. I still have my typewriter, and my Brownie Kodak Camera.All full of WONDERFUL memories. I now make lap quilts for our Wounded Warrior project. Get involved!
February 12th, 2014 at 7:07 pm
I inherited a tote bag that matches the girl scout fabric which explains why the bag has no tags on it. It belonged to my husband’s great aunt who was an executive with G.S. in Philadelphia, PA in the 60’s and 70’s, possibly earlier. I kept it because I thought it was unusual. Now I realize it was handmade from fabric sold by the organization. Do you know the approximate year that fabric came out? Your posts are very interesting. Thanks!
March 11th, 2015 at 9:33 am
Are you still running this web site? I have some original 1959 Girl Scout fabric that I am selling for my elderly friend. It measures 4′ wide x 8′ 2″ long
Do you know anyone interested in purchasing.
If not I will list on Ebay.
I love the pattern!!
Terry