My Collection

The My Collection merit badge is a great way of investing into a particular item that inspires you, or is the carrot on a stick for you to complete a task to earn things.

As with all my merit badges, I will be starting fresh with what I need to do to earn my badges, rather than back-dating anything to claim them early. I feel this is how I'm going to get the most out of the process. 

For my Collection, I have decided that the something new and fun for me to collect will be postcards. 

I was recommended this website called PostCrossing. This is a website where you are randomly generated an address from anywhere around the world, and you're required to send this person a postcard. There's no skipping, or cancelling. Once you've been given the address, that's where it's going! 

In return, for every postcard you send, and is successfully received and logged by it's recipient, your address is entered in to the address pool to then receive a postcard from someone in return. Note, not the same person you sent your postcard to! 

I've generated my first three postcards, one to Russia, one to WA, America, and one to Germany, all of which are to be posted tomorrow! 

Hopefully all of my recipients love their cards as much as I do, and I look forward to them arriving safely, to allow for me to receive my first postcards from PostCrossing! 

Just pop a stamp on me, and I'm ready to go! 

Badges, and more badges!

I have always been a person who loves to collect things, but usually I like to find something I value, rather than just random clutter. I'm terrible for hoarding, and needless to say, my bedroom is often a state! Full of bits and bobs where I've tried different things, with no real drive to see them through to finishing them, or getting loads better at the task. 

I've recently joined the World of Girl Guiding once again after a plea was put out on social media for extra help with leaders for the units. Seeing all the girls in their badges, sashes and tabards gave me the want to earn my own badges again. 

I begun just by buying generic badges to sew on an old blanket, and soon found my collection to have grown into badges for the sake of having badges, not ones I specifically loved. 

THEN! An advert came up on my Facebook for an adult merit badge group. A specifically designed set of books to give adults the chance to re-live their days of collecting badges for a whole range of things. The traditional badges like arts and crafts, and camping, all the way to badges for self-care, circus skills and geocaching! Along with this comes a great online community to connect with like-minded people, share your achievements and show off what outrageous things you've done to earn your next badge. 

And that, my friends, is how I became a badge 'Rebel'.