Saturday, March 10, 2012

High Heels High Standards Night

In one of our meetings recently we were talking about the concerns we had for our YW. One that came up was the short shorts that seem to come out when summer comes. We decided to address this issue with a Standards night before the summer came and it felt like we were pointing fingers. 

Lucky for me I had the next available combined activity coming up. So I put together our 
High Heels High Standards Night.

I had been racking my brain for a theme to use so that I could make this fun and I came across the "High Heels High Standards" over at Sisters In Zion. Also there they had posted pictures of these high heel cupcakes that I had also seen on Pinterest and wanted to use. 

I went with a boutique feel for the evening and loved how it all came together. 

This is the invitation that I created that I gave the girls the Sunday before.
Sets the tone for the whole night don't ya think?

I had each girl bring their favorite pair of high heels to the activity. I was going to use them as display and to incorporate into the lesson I was giving. 

I had my good friend who is a whiz at cakes come over the night before to help me do them. I absolutely LOVE how they turned out and now that I've made them will totally be doing them again (I've got more color and design combos I want to try). 



 Once upon a time I wanted to do my laundry room in pink and black with a Parisian/fashion them going on so I happened to have a few things on hand that I could use. 

I set up five classroom tables and on each table put a box of some kind because I wanted to display the girl's shoes that they brought. Each table was a little different.


 Their favors to take home were those little shopping bags on the classroom tables. Inside I put one of those glass slippers you get in the wedding section at the craft store with some Hot Tamalies. The tag on the front said "Modest is Hottest".


I wish I would have gotten some pictures with the girl's shoes on these tables but alas, the night got away from me. 

In the center of the room I set up a long table for the high heel cupcakes.





Here are a few shots of the whole room.



To start off I asked a few of the girls to tell us why the shoe they brought was their favorite and how they felt when they wore it. Then I picked up a shoe (which happened to be a zebra print in sequins) and asked them to tell me about the person who would wear this shoe. Things like fun, confident, attitude, stylish all came out and then we asked who's shoe it was and if all those words described that person, which they did. I then related that what we wear tells others about who we are and explained that we were going to be focusing on modesty for the evening.
 During the course of the program we went over the guidelines in the For Strength of Youth book and talked about those. I also wanted to emphasize the "why" we have been asked to dress modestly so we talked about their divine role and used some great quotes from the apostles.
I had gathered some magazines and asked them to find the modestly dressed women in them and we taped them up on the board and pointed out that sometimes it may not be easy to find the modest clothing out there but if we look hard enough we can always find it.

 I also found a You Tube video that was titled "A guys view on modesty" that we played at the end. And to make it a little more personal for them I had two Priests in our ward write letters (because they had their own activity going on) about their thoughts on modesty.

I ended with this quote (and it being days later that I'm doing this post cannot remember who it is that said it, so if you know please let me know so I can give credit)

"In the classic fairy tale, Cinderella wore a magnificent gown to the royal ball. Even her slippers reflected the significance of the evening! It would have been unthinkable for her to come in her working clothes. In fact, no one arrived at the ball dressed in inappropriate, casual clothing. They were all elegantly dressed for the occasion."

I then explained that our life here on earth is our "ball". At this ball we can even find our Prince Charming, and that we need to be appropriately dressed for the occasion.

It was a great evening and I hope the girls had their testimonies of modesty strengthened from it.



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Thursday, March 1, 2012

coming up

So right on the "heels" of our New Beginnings I am in charge of our Standards night. We wanted to address modesty at this standards night because as the warm weather approaches we see too much skin. Living here in Las Vegas the warm weather comes soon and stays for quite a while so we wanted to address this before it became and issue. 

I pinned these high heel cupcakes a while back and then saw that the girls over at Sisters in Zion put a really cute twist on them. I have been racking my brain for a theme for this Standards night ,because well I just work better when I have a theme, and they had a perfect one for me to run with.

So I introduce to you the invite for our High Heels and High Standards Night.
The heels play right in to "attire" and more specifically modest attire. 
So here is the invite I created for this night. 
I've had them printed off and then I added some black boa to the top for a more boutique kind of feel to them. 

I'll post more soon about the program and what else I've got cooked up for the night. I'm so excited about this one!!!!

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Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Valentines Day treat

I took a little treat around to my beehives for Valentines Day to let them know I love them. 

I saw this on a great blog Inking Idaho and I know I'll be doing lots more of these in the future. 



You can find these mini bags HERE, but find a friend who wants to get some as well or plan to buy a bunch because they charge for small orders, but it's still a pretty good deal. I sorted a bag of Valentine M&M's to put in them.



I also later added a tag with their name but didn't snap a picture of that~ sorry.






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A Sunny New Beginnings

Our Sunny New Beginnings was a great success. I was so proud of all our girls who participated, they did such a great job. I took a few of the ideas from my idea board to put together our refreshment table, that was the extent of our decor for the evening. 

I chose to to the ruffled crepe paper for a backdrop for the table (which I love, love, love, and won't do plain crepe paper ever again).



I also loved the lemons under glass and did a mini version using glass from 8x10 frames.


I added a little sparkle and shine to the table with some mason jars and glittery letters which I found at Hobby Lobby. I made mini cake stands from candle plates and candle sticks (which I got at the Dollar Tree) to put the jars on. I also added some glitter around the jars for a little more sparkle. 





 I also made a little bunting for the front of the table.


For our refreshments we had Lemon bars, lemon cheesecake, sunshine cookies, mini lemon cupcakes, and cake pops for them to take home.




It was a great night and I hope all the girls felt the spirit of Personal Progress and will be inspired to be more diligent in doing theirs.


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Monday, January 30, 2012

looking ahead~ lesson 10

I am starting to prepare my lesson for the first Sunday in March. The lesson is Supporting Family Members. Maybe I should preface this by saying that I am a very visual person, I remember things better when I have a visual to go with it, I'm sure that's why I teach the way I do.

For this lesson I am doing a Cheerleader/team theme. I want them to be their families biggest cheerleader and realize they are all on the same team and that working together to reach the "goal" is important. 

On the table I'll have a pom pom, football, megaphone, & maybe a basketball.  I'd love to get my hands on a small piece of turf for my "table cloth". 

I'm going to make pennants for everyone and attach their quote/story/scripture to them. For their hand out I'm thinking about making these pom pom pens I saw on Pinterst. 

I also found these cute digital cheerleaders that I may use as well. 



at the end of the lesson they are suppose to think of ways to support their family members. I found a cute idea on Sugerdoodle about leaving compli~mints for family members so I'm planning on making up enough strips of paper for them to take for each family member and attaching a mint to go with the compli~mint. 

I'll be posting my quotes and stories as I get them done so that they are available for download for anyone who would like them. 
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Sunday, January 29, 2012

New Beginnings invite

I can't believe how fast New Beginnings is coming up. This last week was all about working on getting the invites ready to hand out on Sunday. I designed the paper invite in Photoshop and had them copied at Office Max. 

Once they were printed I thought they needed a little sparkle so I added some glitter around the "sunny" and love how it turned out. 



I originally thought I wanted to do little boxes to put the invite in but decided that the bag was just as cute. I added some lemon heads for a little extra sunshine. 



 I found a sunshine on a cartridge for my Cricut that worked perfectly.



 Already to go. 
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