Our Girl Scout Cookie Booth: What's Working, and What's Not

My Girl Scout troop had our second cookie booth last weekend, and all last week, my two worked hard to implement what they'd learned from our first cookie booth at Wal-mart and make some improvements.

It was decided that MORE color and MORE decoration would draw MORE attention, so working from a rainbow theme, the kids decided to pin play silks in rainbow colors to the front of the otherwise plain blue felt tablecloth:

That orange, by the way, had to be made fresh--where did our orange play silk go?!?

And there was also some hijinks involved in the construction:

The kids also noted that a Girl Scout who wasn't tied to the table could potentially entice over customers whose path wasn't carrying them right by, so I introduced them to the concept of the sandwich board. I'll have a full tutorial over at CAGW later, but in short, Will and Syd each composed a poem about Girl Scout cookies, painted them onto large pieces of cardboard, and then the Girl Scouts who manned the booth all took turns wearing it:

Seriously, how CUTE is that?!?

And here's the booth!

I love that you can really tell that it's kid-constructed, even though our troop is on the younger side. It's messier than it would be if the parents were controlling it, of course, but cookie selling is a girl-led business, after all, and it's wonderful to watch the kids visibly growing in skills during the course of the sale. One kid learned to count back change. One kid, who at the start of the booth was too shy to speak to customers, by the end of the booth was eagerly asking each one if they wanted their cookies gift-wrapped.

I also have to give props to how incredibly patient every single person who came by our booth was with the girls. One woman stood by and smiled as I demonstrated counting back change to a kid, then put everything back so that she could do it herself, then put everything back and demonstrated it again when she couldn't figure it out the first time, then put everything back and let her try again until she got it correct. Another couple let me hold a shy kid by the shoulders and prompt her with every single thing that she said so that she could get the hang of interacting with customers. More than one customer asked a kid a simple question ("Which is your favorite cookie?" or "Do you like being a Girl Scout?") and stood patiently while the kid took absolutely ages to think up the answer that she wanted to give. Not a single person acted a bit fussed to be dealing with these eager, fumbling, unsure, learning-as-they-went, clumsy kiddos.

And, of course, I'm learning as I go, too! Some things that haven't worked out so far:

• offers of free gift wrapping, Valentine's cards, ribbon, etc. This might work if the kids used the offers to up-sell cookies, or entice customers over to our table, especially with those pre-Valentine's Day booths, but the kids in my troop are too young, and already have too much in their heads that they have to say. 
• our stock. I don't know if our council is unusually short-supplied this year, or if this is a perennial problem, but I have not been able to get cases of cookies from them when I need them--I'm currently wavering about whether or not to cancel a cookie booth tomorrow, on account of we're out of Thin Mints and there are no more to be had. And don't even get me started with the gluten-free Toffee Tastics--they're apparently sold out nationwide! Next year, I'm going to make a much larger pre-order, and try to avoid dealing with restocking as much as possible.
• change. MORE dollar bills! ALL THE MORE dollar bills!
• prizes for buying five boxes. The prizes are kid-made and super-cute, and everyone is pleased when they've been told that they've earned one (most memorable prize-related moment: the five college women who came up, one woman planning to treat each of her friends to a box of cookies, who were so stinking thrilled when I told them that, due to the special circumstances, I'd let them EACH pick a prize, and who made such a happy fuss about picking their prizes, that every single kid at the booth was beaming by the time they finally completed their purchase and walked away), but again, the kids had too much to think about to market the prizes or try to up-sell the customers into them.

Some things that have worked out well:

• the booth itself. The kids put a huge amount of effort into decorating that booth, and although I don't necessarily know that it drew in any sales, we did get loads of compliments about it, so I know that it was noticeable!
• free samples. Another parent was in charge of this, and it definitely brought in some sales. Considering that we paid for the cookies that we gave away using money from our troop's donation box, it was well worth it. Next time, I'll suggest only offering samples of cookies that we need to sell more of--I have more boxes of Rah-Rah Raisins than I'm comfortable with this late in the season, but I'm flat-out of Thin Mints, dang it.
• that donation box. Always have a troop donation box! Lots of people have put their change into it, and it's money that goes straight to our troop, with no required cut to our council.
• that sandwich board. Again, I don't one hundred percent know if it brought in any sales by itself, but it definitely let people across the foyer of the grocery store know that there was a cookie booth nearby, and it gave the younger kids, especially, something to do when their brains got tired of focusing on customer service.
• "Please buy Girl Scout cookies!" I don't know how you can sell cookies without assigning a kid to make eye contact with passers-buy and call this out. It's essential, and I think it's a great experience for the kids.

Speaking of cookies... my kids are still hoping to collect donations for Operation Cookie Drop, which gives Girl Scout cookies to our soldiers. Four dollars buys a box, although more or less is also welcome. The Paypal Donate button is at the top left of my blog. If you've already donated--thank you! You can be on the lookout for a thank-you email, written by the kids, in your email inbox one day soon, as soon as I can entice them away from sledding and balloon animals (yes, that's a thing right now) and board games and building blocks.

Aerial Silks, at School and Home

The kids who've been doing this in class this summer--

--have been doing this all summer at home:

Some of it is actual "practice" for silks class, I suppose--

--but it turns out there are lots of creative ways to channel that new confidence:

Not only are the girls growing stronger and, in Sydney's case, working through some of her perfectionism (She didn't even throw a fit after her last class!), but they've also really been inspired to experiment with the physics of bodies and fabric. That DIY swing was probably inspired by the silks, and I've grown accustomed to bringing along that one six-foot-long play silk every time we go to the park. The kids have found all-new things to tie that silk to--I've seen them thread it through the zip line and then knot it into a seat, mount it to the monkey bars and use it to swing from one end to the other, hold it at the top of the slide so that the other kid can use it to climb up, hand-over-hand, and put it to countless other very useful uses.

This one play silk is getting so much use that I've bought a few 12-foot-long play silks to dye and add to their collection--I can't wait to see what they do with all that extra length! If they stay interested in aerial silks, perhaps an entire DIY aerial silks rig is warranted...

Kid-Made Tree Swing

Apparently, all you need is--what is that? Two yards?--of fabric (fortunately, it was a piece that was given to me and that I don't especially care for, but that was just happy chance) and a willing mulberry tree that has two branches at just the right distance and angle. These appear to be the factors that the kids used when making this, their now most beloved tree swing:

The first that I knew of this creation was hearing the ungodly scraping of branches against my study window, running over to check what the hell the kids were doing to the house this time, and seeing Will happily swinging here while Syd was telling her a story of what sounded like what adventures might ensue if the chickens escaped.

The girls have been going through a phase of experimenting with tying their play silks to any and everything and hanging and swinging off of them (thank goodness for sturdy silk!), so I wasn't *too* surprised to see this latest invention. I've recently finished up dying them several new long rainbow play silks (I did a terrible job on the color transitions, and they look horrible, but fortunately my kids are easy to please--in THAT area, at least), so I'm eager to see what new wonders of engineering they'll come up with.

Pink Play Silk

It took me too long to succumb to this one, but finally my girls have a Momma-dyed pink play silk (and a few more pink play silks up in my pumpkin+bear etsy shop, of course):

I am pretty sure that my kiddos would be perfectly happy with a toy collection that consisted solely of play silks and tiny plastic animals.

Red and Green Play Silks for Christmas

Personally, I'm feeling more like autumnal colors still, browns and oranges and burgundy, but Christmas IS a'coming, and soon enough this red and green 30"x30" play silk will be the pinnacle of festivity:

 

 

 

It's still pretty mild here--I wonder how many other outdoor photo shoots I can sneak in before it starts snowing?

Sweet Life

Miss Willow, inspired by all the Bunnicula books that a little girl could ever dream on, is dressed as...

a VAMPIRE!!!

I sewed her voluminous black cape, complete with epic hood, out of a big piece of stash stretchy velvet that I bought at Goodwill sometime or other.

And her fangs, can you tell?

Yep, plastic fork.

Sydney wanted to be a "leaf mermaid," whatever that is. I sewed her a pillowcase skirt, she decorated the skirt with Tee Juice fabric marker leaves (and a sun and sky and raindrops and clouds, etc.), and then I safety-pinned one of her no-sew tutus to the bottom to flutter out like a mermaid's tail. The rest of her outfit (what little there is, yes, I am aware) is made from our hand-dyed play silks tied around her:

We have a FABULOUS neighborhood for trick-or-treating--lots of families, LOTS of houses with porch lights lit, lots of undergrad rentals in which, if they're girls, they give out enormous amounts of really good candy, and if they're dudes, they come to the door half-dressed, look surprised to see you, then shuffle around in their cabinets before handing over sweet stuff like powerbars and cans of soda and money.

LOVE our neighborhood:

We always head out at sunset, and I always force everyone to arm themselves amply with glowsticks, and Matt always looks about like this about his glowstick necklace--

--but I swear, that article that they run in the newspaper on Halloween every year, advising drivers to be especially cautious because kids will be running around like idiots? They write that article on account of my kids, who ran around and dashed back and forth across the street and fell down porch stairs and walked right into people's houses while I ran after them and shouted a lot:

Yep, I'm the unwary mom who lets my girls accept cups of apple cider from total strangers, the lax mom who does not pay my kids to take their candy or hand it off to the candy fairy or stuff it in the freezer to dish out a piece a day or whatever the cool parents are doing this year, the neglectful mom who, when a kid looked up from her haul later that night, her mouth full of candy, and asked, "Hey, did we have dinner?", replied, "Candy. That's your dinner."

And yet somehow I HAVE managed to get the children to keep their candy wrappers picked up (so far) this year, and they keep coming up to me, unbidden, and offering me pieces of chocolate, which they know is my favorite, and this year my shy girl went up to every single house with her little sister, and said, "Trick-or-treat!" and "Thank you!" AND "Happy Halloween!" at every. Single. House!

See? Sweet life, with Reese's cups and all.

Play Silks of Blue

Inspired by a custom order that entailed dyeing a giant play silk canopy in three shades of blue, I repeated those shades in a set of three of the 30"x30" play silks that my girls seem to like best:

I think that they like this set pretty well, too, don't you think?