New Beginnings Theme~ You are my Sunshine

After all my Rainbow idea collecting we decided to go with a different theme for our New Beginnings. We decided to go along with the theme for the youth this year, Arise and Shine Forth, and do a You are My Sunshine theme. So I've been on the hunt for sunshine things and ideas and here's what I've found so far.

These would make great favors as well as decorations I would change the centers to go with the sunshine theme.

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Love the lanterns strung like this

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 Fun yellow treats

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 LoVe LoVe LoVe the ruffle streamers and here's a tute on how to make them

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I really liked the basic white boxes with yellow ribbon and the flowers, it all looks so "sunny"!

 

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 This was a sunshine party, loved the banners around the fence as well as the food ideas

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I'm still on the hunt for fun food ideas. So far I've got lemon bars, mini lemon meriagne pies, & lemonade. I know there are lots more ideas out there and I'll post my food finds when I've got a few to share.

New Beginnings idea board

New Beginnings is coming up quickly for us and of course it's all about Personal Progress and the values. So rainbows jump right out at me and there are so many things you can do with rainbows and tying them into the personal progress colors. 

First up are decoration ideas: 

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 tissue poms are a great way to add color and doing them in the rainbow colors would be a great way to spread some color.

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 Or instead of tissue you could use tulle

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 paper circles in rainbow colors sewn together make great garlands

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 add some crepe paper to those circle garlands and you've got a great combo

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 These are great streamers and easy to make

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 streamers attached to a hoop and hung like chandeliers

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 I love the Chevron pattern with the rainbows

Ok so now how about the treats:

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 taffy on a stick  

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 cake in a jar

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 Love the gumballs

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 This is Jello ice cubes in Sprite

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 There are lots of rainbow cake tutorials out there 

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 gumballs on a skewer or in a mini cello bag

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 gumball flowers

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 Sprinkles, straws, and mini gumballs

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 Love the push pops and the paper medallions on the straws

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 on a healthier not this veggie display would be great

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 or you could do a dinner and make this colored spaghetti

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candied popcorn would also be yummy (so much for the healthy ideas)

Now it's just fun things I loved that you could incorporate to your night.

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 how fun would it be to have these bags in an array of colors for them to fill at the end of the night?

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 these would be great as a take home favor or to make that night as a project

The main objective of New Beginnings is to introduce the Personal Progress program to the girls who are either new to YW or who will be coming in in the up coming year. 

How you do your program depends on your ward and it's needs.

hope you found this inspiring! 

mother/daughter activity

I've been collecting ideas for a mother daughter activity. Last year we did a dinner and game for our mother/daughter activity, this year I'm thinking spa party. 

I've found some great ideas out there on the web so this is just my idea board.

supplies: nail polish, lotion, files, cotton balls, Q-tips, towels, headbands, bowls, polish remover, cucumbers, facial masks, clippers, toe separators, cutical sticks

these invites are adorable and perfect!!

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 I loved the idea of the mom's and girls doing the treatments on each other. 

here is a cute soak and nail station. She also had a facial station with an oatmeal mask and cucumbers for the eyes.

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You'll also need some soothing music and water sounds, as well as low lights in the facial station. use battery tea lights or twinkle lights

Can also decorate with louffa's

I thought this was a cute idea for the nail station

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I loved these flip flops and thought they'd be fun to have for the girls and their moms

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A scrub would be a great take home for each of the girls and their moms

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I also thought we could have a make-up station where the girls could get tips on make-up and skin care

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We could also make lip gloss 

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and of course there has to be food. these veggies and dip would be perfect and add some mini water bottles and we're set. 

 sorry I couldn't find the source for this one, if anyone knows it's origin please let me know

I also thought these might be great favors for a take home, nail polish in cupcake holders

or do swag bags with all the fun things in them

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another cute favor idea

I've seen nail kits at the dollar store with toe seporaters, files and clippers so that each girl would have something to use. 

could also find hand towels at the dollar store to use. 

What to do with mom's with more than one daughter???? Leaders step in? 

Personal Progress Activity

I found the idea for this activity on Sugardoodle. It actually turned out to be a great night and the girls got some goals planned and others signed off.

It's called a Ketchup Night, where we "ketchup" on some Personal Progress. I had the beehives over to my home and they brought their books so we could look over what they still need to do and so that I could see if there was anything we could do as an activity to help. 

We had french fries and tater tots as a treat to go with our "ketchup" I also made up a mark off sheet for those two week goals to help them track their time spent on it. 

We'll be having these nights a few times a year to keep us current on the girls progress.

This is the goal tracking sheet I made up you can download it here if you'd like.

here is a blank copy of the invite I made for the night. I had them printed out as photo's at Walmart which is cheaper than doing a color copy. You can add your info in the blank space.  I went to McDonalds and just asked for as many ketchup packages that I need and they gave them to me for free.

download it here

YW Christmas gifts

I had lots of ideas for gifts for the Young Women this year but of course there are always issues with budget so some of my ideas were out of the question. But this one seemed to work really well. I saw this over at How Does She and thought it would be perfect.

I bought my vinyl at Expressions Vinyl for $.99 a sheet and got all the mugs at the Dollar Tree. We put a package of hot chocolate, a dipped spoon, and a dipped marshmallow in each cup. 

 

For another great gift idea for YW check out my friends creative blog 

Creative Momma's 

She's got a really cute board that she did for her YW.