DOTS {Depend on the Savior} -Young Women in Excellence

Last fall, our wards youth and leaders were in the midst of Phoenix Temple Cultural Celebration. Planning & preparing for the celebration occupied every Wednesday night, (plus some Saturdays & Sundays) from September-November 2014. So when it was all said and done mid-November...I was wiped out! However, my presidency & I still needed to plan & execute an Evening of Excellence to recognize our sweet YW and all that they had accomplished in Personal Progress that year.

So...as a presidency, we decided to KEEP IT SIMPLE!! I knew that we wanted our theme for the evening to be "DOTS-DEPEND ON THE SAVIOR." For the year of 2014, We motivated our YW by having them earn DOTS as they worked on their Personal Progress. Each class had a mason jar to fill. As the girls earned their DOTS, they helped fill up their class jar. When the jar was full, the class got to have a fun activity or party of their choosing.

But I wasn't quite sure how we were going to pull this fun motivational activity and our YWIE all together. Oh...and I forgot to mention that at this time...the holiday's were already upon us.

 

As I looked online for ideas, I found this post over at

PEEK-A-BOO PHOTOS

http://www.peekaboophotos.com/evening-in-excellence-personal-progress/

Her ideas and execution of this event were ADORABLE! I LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT IT!!

I especially loved her use of GOLD DOTS, instead of using the value colors. Plus, since we were in the midst of the holidays, gold dots would be festive...and that it was!

As a presidency, we decided to have our YWIE take the place of our traditional Christmas Party. We also decided to keep the evenings program very casual. Once everyone arrived, we had a prayer & the theme, & then let our YW & parents munch & mingle.

We served donut holes & had hot chocolate bar that the YW & parents could munch on, as they walked around admiring the projects that were displayed. It was FABULOUS!! 

I have to give a shout out to my one of our sweet Beehive Advisors, Lindsay Bangart, for making 2 of these AWESOME donut hole trees. They turned out SO. DANG. CUTE!!

 

We kept the decorations VERY SIMPLE! We covered the tables & backdrops with gold polka dot wrapping paper. We used gold & white paper plates on the walls as polka dots.

We added gold Christmas trees & few gold ball ornaments here & there.

(I don't have a picture of it BUT we had taken pictures of the YW & framed them in a gold frame so they could display it with their projects.

After Munching & Mingling for about 20 minutes, we had a brief program.

 

It was a great evening. Simple, yet spiritual and a wonderful way to celebrate our YW and all that they accomplished in 2014.

For the hand out, We made each girl an ornament that had a picture of Christ in it, with snow. They decorated the trees in the front of the room, till the evening was over. They were super cute!!

(Of course, I forgot to take a picture of it).

Summer Subway Art

Yes, Yes...I am so far behind in posting! About a year behind, to be exact.
But wanted to share the Summer Subway Art that I created today for my house.
Now that Easter is over, my "holiday" frame that I have subway art is empty till Forth of July.
I thought it would be fun to have a printable I could keep out all summer long. So off to Pinterest I went a searching. So many cute choices but here is the deal...none of the cute printables out there pertained to and Arizona summer. We don't do things like fireflies, campfires and s'mores here in the Valley of the Sun for summer. It's just TO. DANG. HOT!! We do inside anywhere with air conditioning or the pool...that's about it!!

So here you go...my version summer subway art - Arizona style. It's formatted to 8x10. 

Enjoy!!

Feel free to download & print for personal use. However, if you post to your blog, please link the printable back to my blog.

Happy Summer Everyone!!

Valentine Ideas

I am so, so far behind!! I have so many things to post and update, I'm not really sure where to begin. Soooo...since the next holiday to come upon us is Valentines Day, I thought I would show you what I did last year for Valentines Gifts. 

It's always a challenge for me to come up with creative *NEW* holiday handouts for my Young Women. Last year I was inspired one day while at .99 ONLY store shopping for something else. 

I found boxes of fortune cookies. There were a dozen in each box for $1!! SCORE! 

{SIDE NOTE...and YES, by the way, I do buy groceries at .99 ONLY.  I have 2 rules when buying food there. #1) it has to be name brand products. #2) Check expiration dates.}

Anyway...I have A LOT of girls to make hand outs for (I usually make 30), so the cheaper the better.

I then bought some of the red & pink chocolate for candy making & dipped just 1/2 the fortune cookie in chocolate. Add a few sprinkles and viola...SO. DANG. CUTE! and YUMMY!

 

I already had these adorable Valentine Chinese take out boxes in my bin of valentines stuff...so those were free.  

 

I put a little bit of red paper shreds in the bottom of each box and then filled each box with 3 cookies. 

 

They turned out SUPER cute and very YUMMY!! Both my YW and my boys LOVED getting them for Valentines. 

 

Happy Hearts Day!

BLANK INVITE FILES

Hi All!!
I've had LOTS of requests for some of my blank invites & tags for New Beginnings and Young Women in Excellence. I am attaching the ones that I have made. I don't feel comfortable attaching any that we've used with other people images, photography or downloads. So...I'm just going to post the ones I've made myself, from scratch.
Just click on the picture, once it opens right click on it and select "Save Picture As." Then, once you've downloaded it to you computer, you can add your own text to it via Photo shop (or any photo editing software you may use).

YW LEADERS BOARD MEETING

~invite~

"Taste the Rainbow" NEW BEGINNINGS

~invite~

 

~sign~ 

 ~blank tag~

 ~text for programs~

YW Christmas Party

~invite~

 

HOPE THAT HELPS!!!

Boys Rooms Re-Do

For my boys birthdays this year, I decided it was time to re-do their bedrooms. My oldest boys have been sharing a room for 11 years. It was time that they each got their own space. Plus...I needed an excuse to decorate.Don't really have lots of time to write out all the details but I at least wanted to get the pictures up.
I started in the boys bathroom.
Here are the before pictures...

It was cute...but way to juvenile for my 2 older boys who were getting ready to turn 13 and 11. it needed to be just a little more grown up.

So here are the after pics...

It turned out just as I had pictured. I still want to paint the cabinets but I will...eventually...

 

Vinyl Projects~

Over the past couple of months, I've done a couple of vinyl projects for myself or friends that I wanted to share.

 

Wedding Tiles are always popular but I like how these have the first initial instead of the last name that you see all the time. I also like the simplicity of the date...and no 'Est.' in front of it.

Unless you've been living under a rock...you know that SUBWAY art is all the rage these days. Here are a couple of projects I've just recently done.

A good friend of mine is from San Francisco & wanted to surprise her parents with a large sign that had all the places they used to go in SF when they lived there. So she sent me the words & I imported the logos or fonts that matched the place, then put the board together. LOVE the way it turned out!!

Recently, 2 of the ladies who serve in YW with me JUST had babies. They were both 3rd babies so I REALLY wanted to do something special for them but different since they weren't really in NEED of baby stuff. I found the idea of baby subway art on Pinterest & thought it was DARLING!! Here is what I came up with for them.

Recently, 2 of the ladies who serve in YW with me JUST had babies. They were both 3rd babies so I REALLY wanted to do something special for them but different since they weren't really in NEED of baby stuff. I found the idea of baby subway art on Pinterest & thought it was DARLING!! Here is what I came up with for them.

When I was called as YW Pres, the YW closet had some value boards in there. I liked the idea of having a board with each value but the boards in the closet were old and needed a little face lift. So...to get ready for New Beginnings in January, I re-did all the boards. I'm proud to say that I modge-podged paper to the front of a wood board. I've NEVER MODGE PODGED BEFORE!! SO YAY FOR ME!! Then added the value in white vinyl & a small flower to match. I was really happy with how they turned out!

 

Every Christmas, I decorate my downstairs bathroom in lots of holly berries. I add hand towels, Christmas ribbon, & a Christmas soap dispenser. This year I also added this vinyl to our glass shower door. This vinyl makes it look like the glass has been etched but really its just a large vinyl applique. It is subtle but I think added the perfect final touch to the bathroom. 

  

Happy Crafting Everyone!!

"Tickled Pink" Baby Shower

A couple weekends ago, I had the chance to help out with a baby shower for cute little AMY EVANS. She is not only a friend, she serves in YW with me, & is my sons 2nd grade teacher. She is just a doll!! Love her! Was so excited when she announced that she was preggers with her first baby and even more excited when she announced it was a GIRL!! Poor thing...I called dibs on helping with her shower about 5 minutes after she posted the sex of the baby news on Facebook!

My house {filled with 4 boys}, is defiantly lacking in pink!! I get a little bit of a 'GIRLY' fix since I serve in YW but always love when I get a chance to let my girly side let loose.

 

Amy won't have a nursery quite yet, but had sent me pictures via Pinterest of the nurseries that she liked. All of which were in the colors of raspberry, watermelon & aqua blue. Here is the invite that I came up with to match those colors.

I'm kind of a theme girl. More for the sake of my sanity than for any other reason. As I plan a party, having a theme helps me organize my thoughts and pull it all together.

So for Amy's shower I came up with

"TICKLED PINK~IT'S A GIRL!"

I had cut put paper into flowers & butterflies & asked guests to write wishes, words of wisdom & advice on them & then hang on the wishing tree that greeted them in my foyer as they arrived.

Here is what it looked like at the end of the shower when it was full.

Here is a look at the gift table. My friend RACHEL BLASER made the adorable tutu banner. Didn't it turn our cute? and oh so girly!!

Here is a look at the serving table

 

~Pre Food~

 

~Post Food~

The LADY who did the food, is a friend of mine & also Amy's aunt.

The food was AH-MAY-ZING!! We are talking gourmet menu. It not only sounded good but tasted better! I'm not a fan of planning the food so I was happy that she took that portion of the shower over. Thanks Risa!!

 

 

 

 For drinks, we served 3 different types of *PINK* lemonade. I had also bought hot pink straws and made custom water bottles for the drinks {which were applied by my friend BRITTANY BARNARD}.

Misc. ACCENTS

For accents, I think it's ALL in the small details. So I  added coordinating scrapbook paper & ribbon to candles that I already had. I also bought bunches of flowers in different shades of pink from the dollar tree and then put them in Ball jars that I dyed blue. Yep!! I dyed Ball jars blue...who knew?!

Here are the ones that I did...

Here is the tutorial that I followed. It was actually REALLY simple to do!

Amy's Country Corner Tutorial

I had found a couple of cute free printable online over at

Seriously Daisies

that I just printed and framed in white frames.

 

I also made some pinwheels that we hung around the shower.

Of course we HAD to do a baby clothes line.

And FINALLY...the FAVORS!! 

 My GREAT friend, JAMIE PIEPER, put together Raspberry Vanilla Bath Salts for every guest to take as they left. They were pink...{of course}...and put them in empty baby food jars. DARLING!!

 

 

Everything about the shower turned out wonderful!! I have to say one more thank you to all the ladies who helped put this shower together: Brittany, Jamie, Risa, Amanda & Rachel (left before we took the picture). It was just FABULOUS and the perfect way to celebrate Amy & baby girl Evans!!

UPDATE: I am adding copies of the files that I used for signs, etc at the shower. To download, just right click on the image you want, then save to your computer.

Everyone is welcome to use it. Please, if you post to your blog/site, link the file back to my blog. Thanks!!