Do you give/decorate paddles?

[Peaches-n-Cream]

I gave my big sister a paddle at initiation. I stained the wood and glued on her name and mine as well as our letters and crest. The more creative people painted and glued things that meant something to them. We all wrote something personal to our big sisters on the back as a way to thank them for all of their help and support.

I always liked the paddles because some of them were creative, unique, and personal gifts. I remember one pledge class used lace, pearls, and unicorns on their paddles. They were really lovely.

[tunatartare]

My sorority tends to do painted paddles. (We also do little makes the big a paddle, and the big makes the little a pillow. Paddle-making is much more fun. Trust me. LOL.) I don't like unpainted paddles that have all of the stuff like letters, Big Sis/Lil Sis, names, etc. in wooden letters because I personally feel that the look of wood on wood is kinda ugly. That's just me. One of my pledge sisters though was "warned" by our pledge mom that her Big didn't like painted paddles and that she should leave it blank. Our pledge mom really likes horses, so my class painted the paddle as if it was a field with a horse on it. Most people don't go that elaborate though, they just paint the front, back, and rim of the paddle.

[Rio_Kohitsuji]

In Lambda:
-little gives their big a paddle
-big gives their little a paddle
-Pledge Mistress gets a paddle from the pledge class
-President gets a paddle from the pledge class

This year for my little I made the front of ther paddle look like a letter shirt Red satin bg, white satin letter bg, w/black satin letters, all 3 inch. It had the typical pledge year and semester, with our names on it. On the back had the Actives names only with who all were in her pledge class along w/her own lineage. Pretty nifty

[AGDAlum]

I still have mine. It's 33 years and some months old!

My dad helped me wood-burn Alpha Gamma Delta, the chapter, and the year on the front. I painted the Alpha ed, the Gamma yellow, and the Delta green. There's a decal of the armorial bearings and a decal of the university seal. My pledge/new member class was small and their signatures are all around the edge of the paddle. The initiated members' signatures are on the back. I covered it all with decoupage medium.

One word of warning: the standard paddle (if it's still the same size) is longer than 17" -- 11 x 17 is the size of copier paper boxes in which I store a lot of stuff.

[MysticCat]

AGDAlum, sounds like your situation is similar to mine -- we made our own paddles, making it something of a contest among the members of the pledge class On the front, I painted FMA, the coat-of arms (not a quick task), and the year. On the back, I painted the pledge pin and our chapter letters, together with my name and my big brother's name. There is decorative red and black trim all around.

It doesn't have any signatures though -- those are on my probate (probationary member) hat, which all the brothers in the chapter signed.

I still have them both and guard them carefully.

[kddani]

In our chapter, littles gave their bigs paddles. Most are the standard size paddles.... although the one I gave my big was more the size of a cutting board! We usually glue letters, small crests, and put the names, pledge class year/semester and whatever else, then write something on the back. I have to find a safe place to keep mine when I move. I have them on display in my current apartment, but they're just not going to work with my new decor.

Bigs give their littles hand-painted shields (on a round, square, etc. piece of wood- plaque-like).... let me tell you, painting that thing is murder, even if you use paint pens! I tended to do most of my freehand paintbrush, then used the paint pens for the outlining and smaller details.

[ambición6]

thanks for everyone's suggestions. my pledge daughter likes tie dye hippy stuff so i found this really cool print online in green (her fave color) so i took it to kinkos to get it printed and enlarged and i'm going to cut it out to the shape of the paddle, glue it on, glue our letters (in wood) and paint them in gold. and the glue the wood words for her nickname and paint it in white, and finally glue a pic of me and her and then gloss all of it. when its done, and dry, i'll put up a pic for everyone to see.

[ZTAngel]

We go all out with our paddles.

We carve our paddles into something that represents our big sister. For instance, my big was an avid swimmer so I got her a swimmer paddle. I love pigs so I got a pig paddle. The littles paint the paddle and add some Zeta stuff on there like our letters, family number, names, and chapter. We've had all kinds of paddles such as 5-point crowns, flowers, martini glasses, dogs, cats, white tigers (our local symbol), strawberries, chinese letter symbols, etc.

[Iota-girl4life]

Our Dean of Intakes gave my line sister and I a paddle after our initiation. However, I do not think Big Sisters giving the little sisters paddles is a tradition in our sorority. I really bonded with my Big Sister/Dean of Intake, and I saw a paddle I would like to get for her. Would it be appropriate to give her the paddle as a "birthday" or "Christmas Gift"?

[GeekyPenguin]

Originally posted by Iota-girl4life
Our Dean of Intakes gave my line sister and I a paddle after our initiation. However, I do not think Big Sisters giving the little sisters paddles is a tradition in our sorority. I really bonded with my Big Sister/Dean of Intake, and I saw a paddle I would like to get for her. Would it be appropriate to give her the paddle as a "birthday" or "Christmas Gift"?

I think a paddle would be a great present for those - there's really no wrong time to give one!

[AlethiaSi]

Originally posted by Rio_Kohitsuji
-little gives their big a paddle
-big gives their little a paddle
-Pledge Mistress gets a paddle from the pledge class
-President gets a paddle from the pledge class
[/B]

pretty much the same- except
-littles only make paddles for their bigs
-and instead of the president getting a paddle- we make a house one thats REALLY big and we have them all over the house along with our composites- we have a paddle from practically every pledge class- its really cool

we do them by only painting (with paint pens or something) on them- no glue on letters or anything- its a pain in the butt to do the crest b/c its so intricate... i spent like 2 weeks on my bigs' paddle- but it was worth it- it was voted one of the best

[ADPiShannan]

I think I already posted on this, but at my chapter of ADPi we make the littles pillows and they makes us plaques. Then we have a Pillow/Plaque ceremony before initiation. Its sooo fun and everyone loves doing it. Some of the plaques are soooo amazing. Some people really go all out on it... All plaques are made out of diamonds cause thats what we call littles and bigs diamond sisters. Ill attach my two from the two littles I took. I think they both did AMAZING jobs on theirs.....

[AOII*Azra-elle]

With my pledge class we started doing plaques. I did mine in the shape of an angel...it goes along with family stuff. But, I did make a paddle and give it to my big for Christmas. My first lid'l gave me a paddle and my second lid'l gave me a plaque. The paddle was the original wood finish, but the letters were painted with family colors. My plaque, Heather went all out. It's painted with our favorite colors and sparklized *haha* it's cute.

[sairose]

No, we don't do paddles. Nationally, we are not allowed to, because of the connotations associated with them.

[insolita]

We don't do paddles, either (which, frankly, I was pretty happy about). My big gave me a cross-section of a tree with our family tree burned into it. (It goes right back to the charter sister who started the whole thing, which is kind of nice.) She glued our letters and symbols on it, too. Actually I suspect that her roommate at the time, who was supercrafty and totally made a couple of my pledge gifts, was responsible for the wood-burning, but who knows. I plan to do something similar for my little over the summer, when I have time to indulge my inner Martha Stewart.