Counselor Gifts: Decorated Clipboards

 We love it when Bailey is home, even briefly. And it's especially enjoyable for me when a craft project is in the works. No matter who initiates it, it's always fun to work on projects with her! This time I barely contributed at all, but I still enjoyed watching the process!

 Bailey will be working at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp again this summer. Last summer she was a cabin counselor, supervising four different groups of middle and high school girls over the course of the summer. This year, she will be supervising up to eight counselors and will be responsible for the activities of all the girls in the unit. It's a big job with lots of responsibility, and it will be a great learning experience for her as she prepares to be a music educator.

Bailey takes after her mom in a few ways, and one of them is planning! She likes to have everything organized and ready to go. So when she decided to make welcome gifts for her counselors, she researched and thought a lot before deciding on a gift. When she landed on decorated clipboards, I was a happy camper...no pun intended!

My only contribution to this big project was helping her choose paper to use on her clipboards. We picked out paper from my stash then made a run to Memory Bound to buy a few additional sheets. Then she set to work with a container of Mod Podge, an old credit card, a brayer, and a template for her paper.

She cut all of her paper first using her template. This made the process of creating nine clipboards much easier.

Most decorated clipboards I've seen have the "decoration" on the front side on the surface below the clip. But Bailey decided to put the main decoration on the back side so that when the clipboard is in use, the "pretty" side will still be visible. I would never have considered doing this, but it turned out to be a great idea!

Here are the fronts of a few clipboards:

 After they dried, she decided to add ribbon trim to the tops. Again, she "shopped" in my extensive ribbon stash. (Why, oh why, do I have soooo much ribbon???)

 

 And here are the completed clipboards! The fronts are shown in the top row, with the backs directly below.

 

 

 At the end of the summer, you could print out a favorite camp photo and place it on the front of the clipboard for fun keepsake.

 I think the clipboards are adorable and will be a perfect (and practical) welcome gift for her new team!

jp