Yeah, it's our family name. At my chapter, all the families have Greek-letter names that stand for a "secret name." I haven't heard of another chapter that does it like we do, now that I think about it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...Paddles001.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...Paddles003.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...Paddles002.jpg

here are some up close and personal pictures of my paddle which I designed for my big sister... hope it inspires you somehow. :D

Sylvia,
That is one of the most beautiful paddles I have ever seen!

^_^ thanks so much! i worked really hard on it, i wanted it to be super unique, and it was for an amazing person. :D

Wow, Sylvia, your paddle is absolutely gorgeous. And...is that bird a replica of Fawkes from Potterpuffs? :p It looks awesome!

yeah =) our sorority mascot is a phoenix, hehe ^_^

sylvia, how long did it take you to make your paddle? just curious! i don't have that much creativity in my whole body! when i had to make mine, i bought all of the wooden letters, symbols, etc. i was too afraid to paint it b/c i thought i would mess it up. and it got kind of expensive really quickly...all of the letters and symbols add up fast!

i'm not going to lie, it took a really long time to make it all... several coats of paint on the main part and around the edges... but it was fairly inexpensive since I did all of the wording by hand with paint markers and paintbrushes. :) the rose was a 99cent piece i picked up at Michaels, it was prepainted pink, i stripped the pink off and painted that white. My paddle was like 20 or 25 dollars, I forget and then like 5ish dollars for the jewels... i had to buy several packs to find the colors I needed. Anyways, it turned out exactly how I had imagined. I'm an art major so creativity was a must! :D

It's fun to experiment with paint! I just found out yesterday that I'm getting my first little so I will be making her a small paddle I think. =)

In all, it probably took ehhhhh at least 10 hours or more I would imagine. i was very excited about making it so I forget how long I really spent on it... silly enough, I spent a lot of time just planing it out how everything was going to fit on it! On the back, I wrote a ton and I painted an oriental style tiger. :) maybe i will post pictures of that part later.... :)

Here's the paddle I got from my big sis:

http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/k...b/DSCF0588.jpg

And I don't have a close-up, but here's an old picture of me, hard at work on my lil sis's. I'm mostly done with it by this point, just gluing on the painted letters:

http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/k...b/Untitled.jpg

(sorry the pictures are so enormous)

that's really beautiful! when i was an undergrad, i didn't like the painted paddles so much. i think it was because i didn't have the skill to do a good job with them. but the examples in this thread have totally changed my mind!

I believe a nonpaddle is something thats not a paddle! lol:p:D

Where can you buy the blank nonpaddles & paddles?

Wow, we make our pledges cut their own wood and woodburn or carve or something of the like. It makes them so much more special.

:p That's a really good idea lol ... should have thought of that