pledge pins
 

Last semester I was involved in founding a new local sorority. With this fall semester quickly approaching, it is time to start thinking about our first pledge class. I have been put in charge of designing a pledge pin for our sorority and have no idea where to begin. Any ideas/suggestions would be much appreciated:)

What are your letters and some of your open symbols??

Everything on the pledge pin should (generally) be open information. Also, you have to decide if you want pledges to wear your letters (or some of your letters, example: Phi Mu, pledges wear their quatrefoil shaped badge with a Phi in it).

I would say look how others incorporated their letters, symbols (be they flowers, mascots, icon, etc.), and anything else having to do with the group into their respective pins. Obvioulsy you wouldn't want to copy anyone else's, but using theirs for examples and ideas would probably be a good start.

Think about budget concerns, too. You don't know how many new members you will have and it may not be financially feasible to commission a professional jeweler.

Brainstorm some of the ideas mentioned above-- open symbols, etc., and go to a craft store. You may be able to make a set of new member pins. Other ideas: affixing colored ribbon in your sorority colors to a pin. Or you may find a glass or china flower or symbol that you can affix to a pin back.

Does the National Panhellenic website show the different membership and pledge pins? It might be a good idea to look and make sure that you do not inadvertantly copy an existing pledge pin.

I think ariesrising's site does.

You could try Intercollegiate Designs in New York. They are a jewelry company that does a lot of work with local Greeks. They weren't that expensive. They do custom work but they also have stock dies that can be customized with your colors.

If you're up for doing something a bit different, there's no reason your pledge jewelry has to be a pin.

My chapter started out as a local sorority, Sigma Iota Phi. The founders decided to create a pledge ring instead of a pin. Most GLOs use pins, but our founders wanted to do something different. Our colors were green and purple, and our gem was the amethyst, so the ring was a silver band with an amethyst flanked by two malachite beads. We were required to wear our rings at all times during pledging. After initiation, we kept our rings and were free to wear them any time we wished except during a subsequent class's pledge period. I still have my ring and wear it occasionally.

The mother of one of our founders is a jewelry designer, so she made up our pledge rings, at cost IIRC. She also created our badges.

Just another idea for you to think about. :)

aephi_alum, that sounds beautiful.

Our pledges had necklaces majority of the time. Our campus went more for that than pins during the pledging period. But then again, everything pledges wear here are huge and ugly...heh.

you could make cool hats out of newspaper.

I jest... rings actually sounds nice.

PLEDGE BRACELETS!!!!

Sorry - it's been a long day.

At any rate - are you planning on staying local or on eventually colonizing a chapter of a national sorority? Because if it's the latter, you might want to go with something easier like necklaces and charms rather than going to the expense of having a pin made up.

p.s. yay another Pittsburgher!!

I would just suggest that you put ribbons in your sorority's color on safety pins. It's small, cute, represents the sorority, and, most importantly, cheap. That's important if you're a brand new sorority and don't have a lot of money because no matter what you decide to make, there will be a significant set-up fee and mininum quantity order.

(PS. YAY FOR ANOTHER PITTSBURGHER!! And a local sorority too! :) WOO!)

My local uses a very simple rose pin for pledges. We only recently had active pins designed since so many of us wear lavaliers...its campus culture really. We used PinSource to have ours done...they were very attentive and communicative and got them to us quick.

Will/are you the only local on campus?

Actually, that's not so far fetched! A friend of mine is a Kappa Alpha Theta. At the University of Florida they used to award a really pretty gold bracelet to the "pledge of the week" to wear for that week. I don't know if they still do that, but it was a really nice tradition.

Just to throw another suggestion:

I'm currently making some prototype bracelets for a few sororities. They are bracelets made out of elegant Swarovski crystal beads and sterling silver Greek letter beads. You can easily buy wholesale crystal beads for a great price. It could also be a great social activity for your sorority to make bracelets for your littles.

For price range:

Greek letter beads: http://www.auntiesbeads.com/ProductD...3-38f5eb883a21

Assuming you buy in bulk along with some other letter beads. Each bracelet would best fit up to 7-10 characters. Assuming you put 3 greek letters, 89 cents each, that would be around $2.70.

Swarovski crystal beads: https://www.astralbeads.com/sw_5301_6mm.aspx

most people will use 6mm bicone beads, or even 8mm. Each bracelet would need roughly about 25-30 6mm beads. Average price per color for 36 beads would be roughly about $5-6.

Including other material (clasps, other beads if you wise and wire), the price per bracelet would be roughly $10

Consider the market price of the same kind of bracelet (as you see in department stores, using the famous Swarovski crystal) would be about $50-$60. It's a great deal. I'm sure your sorority sisters would love it =)

That's my advice =)

You can also check if any of your symbols are common, if they are then you might be able to find pretty inexpensive stock jewlery. For example a few years ago I found sailboat necklace and earings at a going out of business sale. I got 3 sets of eah for a total of 5$ including shipping!

There is one other local sorority on campus.... and we may eventually colonize a national chapter... but the reason we became local to begin with was that we couldn't get nationals to come in since we are such a small campus with deteriorating greek life... we're hoping to turn that around.

I may have missed this, but what school are you at?

(I'm also a Pittsburgher)

If my memory is working today, some sororities did just this in their early days, before pledge pins became common.

I go to school at Saint Francis University which is in Loretto, PA. but I'm from Pittsburth... love my steelers!!!

Sigma Kappa still does, wearing them after the installation of a new chapter that sort of thing. Some chapters pin their new girls with their "colors" on bid day and then do pledging later...

Yup. All the Baylor sororities give out pins to new members with ribbons of the sorority's colors on Bid Day. Everyone wears them until they're through pledging. :)

My chapter still "ribbons" girls. About a week or so before they pledge. We kept our ribbons and wore them every Thursday for "Spirit Day". We also always wore them with our badges for chapter, greek events and stuff like that. When women lost badges we used a yellow rose on a pin (from JoAnne or Micheals etc...) until the badge could be replaced. The green and gold pops out and it's quite pretty.

My sorority does ribbons for our pledge pins and all of the NPCs on campus give their new members ribbons to wear on days when they aren't dressed up.

In college we had nice ribbons (they were purple with white ribbon glued on) for "I Week" that NM's wore with their badges as well as active sisters with their badges. If we were not dressed up enough to wear our badge then normally we would wear plainer ribbons on our bags. I still have my ribbons from college actually, I keep them in the same box I keep my badge in.

Same here :) Sometimes older sisters would make new members KD bags and we would affix our pins to them and wear them everywhere :) Sorority bags are also fun and inexpensive :)

We did something similar for this with the All-Panhellenic pledging ceremony...I want to say the ribbons were purple(?), but it has been a few years I can't remember.

Cutie, you are a beader? :)

Check out this site:

http://www.shipwreckbeads.com/

This shop is close to my house and has a cafe and bookstore devoted to crafts and beadwork inside it too...you can literally spend a day in there.

If one of your symbols is fairly common, you could just use a lapel pin. There are many websites that sell lapel pins of all different types.
Check www.pinmart.com or www.lapelpinplanet.com

We ribbon our girls out of tradition, since that is what our founders did with their first pledge class, and they keep it on until they get in or are removed from the pledging process.
The closest they get to letters until they are initiated is their pledge book that has AMB across the front, that they must carry with them at all times.

my sorority is also trying to get pins made, does this Intercollegiate Designs in New York have a website?