Hey, hey, hey! I haven’t made any American Girl Doll Clothes in a long time. Had you noticed? Today, the drought is over! I made new Girl Scout Uniforms for my girls dolls. I’ve got all the cute details for you, should you have a Girl Scout and American Girl Doll fans in your house.
I hadn’t made much for our dolls because they have so much stuff. I felt like it was best to stop making things and not clutter up the house more. Both of my girls had leveled up in Girl Scouts. Snowflake moved up to Cadettes last year and Pumpkin just moved up to Brownies.
I had making a new Cadette uniform on my list for a year now, so since I now needed two uniforms, it was time. I’ve got the free pattern for you along with my ideas for the patches and badges.
My friend Morgane, who blogs at Bear, Dolly, and Moi, has a great free pattern for you for your vests. She also has three different ways to make the vests.
Make sure when you print out he pattern, you aren’t in a hurry like I was this time. Check the 1 inch test part of the pattern. I’m pretty sure that mine printed out just a touch too small because as you can see, the vests came out a touch smaller this time. They still fit, but they are a bit more snug than the Daisy and Junior vests I made two years ago.
I saved myself the trauma of making more bias tape
(affiliate link) and just bought bias tape. I’m pretty sure the sky parted and I head angels sing with how much easier that made this project! I will admit that I like the look of the homemade bias tape better because it is less noticeable and not as wide. I LOVE the store-bought bias tape because it was already made for me and super easy. When I make more vests in the future, I will use store-bought bias tape again.
This time, I based each vest on what my girls vests currently look like. Though I didn’t attempt to add the pins or the USA flag. Pumpkins brownie vest already has 4 badges earned(on the left side of the picture above with only two badges on it because I meant to get some light blue felt for the other two badges and forgot). She already earned a Journey award at camp this summer, so that went on the vest(pictured above).
On the Cadette vest, the bias tape is a bit more noticeable because there wasn’t a perfect match in colors. It is close enough it works.
Again, I tried to match the vest to what my daughter’s vest currently looks like.
To make the badges and patches, use felt in the color closest to the badges. Then use embroidery floss to sew them onto the vest. I use a back-stitch for mine and as you can clearly see…it isn’t perfect. at. all. I try to get the back-stitch as close to the edge as I feel I can so that it will somewhat mimic the edge of the badges. I also try to match the color of the edge trim in the badges.
I made this one a few years ago. (Free American Girl Doll Patterns: Girl Scout Uniform) I thought I would show it to you again to put all of my uniform ideas into one post.
For the Daisy vest, I used different colors of felt to approximate the Daisy petals.
The Junior badges are just circles of different color felt. I’m pretty sure this was before they changed to the national only badge program. So, now I would make these all the color of the current badges with that color of embroidery floss for the edge detail.
I love the details (even though they are far from perfect). My favorite is the LIA, leadership in action, badge I made for Snowflake’s Cadette badge. I realize it isn’t perfect, but I love it and think it is so cute. Such a fun touch to add to the vest. Snowflake loved it!
There you have it, the two new vests we have added to our family. The great thing for you all is that I’ve made a vest that can work for any level of Girl Scouts! (Cadettes can keep their vest from here through Ambassador.)
If you want even more American Girl Doll fun, I’ve got a fantastic Pinterest board filled with ideas for you. Yay!
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it is so much fun to see all 4 uniforms together! great jobs on making realistic badges, I think it is the most time consuming part of these vests!
I do miss my former troop! and while Miss C. still has all of her girlfriends from GS, I know she misses all the fun activities…
Thanks Morgane! Thanks so much for the great pattern! I had fun making these. I used your post as inspiration…you had modeled your daughter’s vest after her actual vest and I thought that was cute. Thanks again!