"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!!

 

 

 

 

"Taste The Rainbow~Savor the Blessings" New Beginnings

The end of January we held our annual New Beginnings. This evening is held for the purpose to introduce the YW program & Personal Progress Program to the girls who are 11 turning 12 each year. This year our theme was

"TASTE THE RAINBOW & SAVOR THE BLESSINGS"

 

 

We've known for a LONG time that we wanted to do a "RAINBOW" theme for this evening after getting the idea for our evening from here~

marcicoombs.blogspot.com

Love that Marci Coombs and all of her FAB-U-LOUS ideas!!

So we stole the idea from her and gave it our own spin.

 

Here's what we came up with....

 Here is the invite that we made for each of our YW. We tied a rainbow unicorn sucker to each one. They turned out adorable & the girls loved getting an invite with a treat to eat!!
Below is a BLANK copy of the invite that you are welcome to download and use.

 

 {a look at the front of the room}

Each YW value has a color...We wanted to introduce these values & Personal Progress program to the upcoming girls by talking about each value, it's color, what its color reminds us of and the blessings that we've experienced as we've worked on that value in doing the Personal Progress program.

We assigned the evening's program to our YW & may I just say they did a TREMENDOUS job!!

 

The program went like this...

YW THEME-YW

YW LOGO & MOTTO'S-YW

CLASS MEANINGS/LOGOS-CLASS PRESIDENTS

 

INTRODUCTION/WELCOME-YW Pres

 

INTRODUCTION & TESTIMONY OF PP PROGRAM-Laurels Class Pres

 

SPECIAL MUSICAL NUMBER-6 YW {2 from each class}

"I walk by Faith"

{there is a new version of this song that now includes 'VIRTUE' value in it}

 

VALUE PRESENTATION-1 leader & 7 YW

We had a 1 girl introduce each value. We gave them a simple script to go off of and asked them to elaborate with there experiences & testimony.

The script was "Hi my name is __________________. I've been asked to present the value of FAITH. The color for FAITH is White. 

To me that color represents __________________.

I have tasted of this value and savored in the blessings by

______________________________________________. 

GUESS WHO? SPOTLIGHT & INTRODUCTION OF 11 YR OLDS-2nd Councilor

(we presented each of these girls with a large rainbow sucker}

CLOSING REMARKS-BISHOP

 

This beautiful frame is my friend Terri's. She let me borrow it for my wedding I did in December & since then I've kind of hijacked it. :) I've used it MULTIPLE times & just LOVE IT!! I think I may need to buy her a new one and keep this one :)

The decorations were VERY easy and cheap. The back drops were created with colored crate paper streamers. The balloons we hung upside down so we didn't have to buy helium. I brought marbles to put in them before we blew them up to weigh they down but forgot to actually put them in the balloons. I would highly suggest that you DO use the marbles if you hang balloons this way. Ours hung OK, but kept sticking to each other because of static and I think the extra weight of the marble would've helped avoid that. We already had the colored table toppers in our closet. Can't get cheaper than crate paper and balloons.

Side Views

There were a couple things that I made new to decorate for the evening.

One was the value boards. We had these in our closet BUT they were old and icky from years of use. So I gave each value board a little face lift. They needed it!!

I also put together the small floral arrangements for each value color. Believe it or not..I already owned the vases (from my friend Emily's wedding I did last year) & I had ALL the flowers in my craft box, EXCEPT for the white ones & the gold (that I had to buy).  But making those were pretty cheap & easy! :)

 

In the back of the room we had the refreshment table & a candy table.

The candy table was what we had for the girls as their take home for the night.

Isn't this table darling. Thanks to my second councilor, JAMIE PIEPER, for putting it all together.

I made the pinwheels to go over the candy table. Super easy but time consuming. They make me happy!! But if I never make another pinwheel it will be too soon.

 

My cute secretary, RACHEL BLASER put together these buckets for the YW to put their candy in.  

 For the refreshments...We made rainbow cupcake & rainbow jello to serve. Both were a HUGE hit with the girls!! I can't take credit for either though. One of the advisers made all the cupcakes & My mom actually made the rainbow jello cups for me.

My adorable secretary also made the 2 pennant banners that we had in the value colors. We hung one on the front table & one on the refreshment table.

2 things that I'm a little OCD about are having the paper products & water bottle labels match. I know...no one else probably even notices but it's kind of a big deal to me.  We've had these cute rainbow napkins in our closet just waiting to be used for over a year. Don't they go just perfectly?

The whole evening went off with out a hitch!! Im grateful to all my AMAZING YW & the job they did on the program that night. Also to my AMAZING YW leaders and for their help pulling it all together. I am blessed!!

UPDATE: I AM ADDING the BLANK files that we used for this. You are welcome to download and use. Just right click on the image and save it to your computer. As always, if you post these images online, please just link it back to my blog.

 

Thanks!!

My *FIRST* Reception

Because I could go on and on...I'm going to TRY to keep the words to a minimum. Let me start by saying that back in October, I decided (after MUCH coaxing from friends, thought & consideration) to start hiring out my services as a "consult" for weddings & home decor. I LOVE to do this anyway, so why not?!

Anyway, my first *OFFICIAL* reception was for a YW who I have known since she was about 10. She happened to be one of my YW, babysat my kids, helped me as a youth consult for LDS prom...and now she was getting MARRIED!?! {it was a moment when I realized I was getting old}. So I was HONORED to help out!! Here are the pics of how it turned out.
 

YW Christmas Gifts

 For our YW Christmas Party, we kept it S-I-M-P-L-E!! I was in the midst of JUST doing a wedding luncheon & planning a wedding reception for 5 days after Christmas. So I needed to make it EASY!!

Our Theme was "TIS THE SEASON." We had every leader bring a bite sized dessert for a dessert bar. Then I brought everything for a hot chocolate bar. :) the program consisted of all the YW leaders sharing their favorite Christmas story with the YW.  We ended the evening with our annual gift exchange, which is always a fave of the girls. REMEMBER...EASY!! The evening was perfect!! Simple, spiritual but fun as well with YUMMY food!!

For the handout, my adorable second counciler {Jamie Pieper} put together these fuzzy sock cupcakes for every girl. In the middle, we rolled up a small nail polish. We displayed the handouts on a cupcake stand @ the dessert table with the treats. We tied them in by talking about the new 2013 theme 'Stand ye in Holy Places.'

 

UPDATE: I am adding a BLANK copy of my invite for anyone who would like to use it. If you do, use it, and post it, PLEASE just link it back to my blog. Thanks!!!

 

 

S.T.A.N.D. YW Board Meeting

The beginning of every year, I have a YW board meeting with all my YW leaders.
We go over leadership training, our calling responsibilities {per the handbook of instruction}, teaching responsibilities, & the Personal Progress program.

This year I really wanted to discuss the Handbook Section 3,

 "Leadership in the Church of Jesus Christ."
 But also tie the evening into the new 2013 mutual theme of 
"Stand ye in Holy Places."
 

I wasn't quite sure how I was going to pull it all together but was hoping to figure it out before our meeting. :)

 

As I was studying the handbook, reading talks & watching videos on serving the YW of the church when I came across the talk from conference a few years back by Sister Beck called "Mothers who know..."

I had a light bulb moment!!!

I thought I could do my leadership instruction & call it

"Leaders who know...STAND."

 I would use each letter of the work STAND & talk about our responsibilities as YW leaders {per the handbook}.

Here is what I came up with...

I pulled out a section of the handbook to share with my leaders for each letter that we discussed.

S-Strengthen-Handbook 10.1.1 & 3.2.3

T-Teach & Testify-Handbook 3.2.4

A-Apply-Handbook 3.2.1 & 10.5 paragraph 3

N-Nurture-Used a portion of Sis. Becks talk "Mothers Who Know...Nurture."

D-Do more by doing less-Handbook 3.3.3, 3.3.4, 10.8

 

Here is the handout that I made for each of my AWESOME leaders to that home that evening so they could remember the 2013 theme.

I just printed a picture of the temple out on card stock that I had put the word "STAND" onto & modge podged it onto a 6x6 tile.
Thanks again to Mindy Evans Photography.
Who has the most beautiful pictures of various temples and allows you to use them for personal use.
The evening turned out GREAT!! I am so lucky to be working with the most amazing YW leaders on our board. They are fabulous!!
Good luck to all you YW presidents planning your board meetings.

UPDATE: I'm adding the BLANK files for this evening for all of you who would like to use them for your own board meetings. You can download by just right clicking on the image and saving the pic to your computer. If you do use it and post it, please just link the file back to my blog. THANKS!!!

Hope this is a help to someone, somewhere. :)