'Sweet is the Work of Personal Progress' YWIE 2014

This past Sunday was my ward's Young Women in Excellence.

(this is a program in my church for young women ages 12-18 to celebrate 

what they've accomplished in the Personal Progress program throughout the year).  

Our theme was

"Sweet is the Work of Personal Progress"

(based off THIS IDEA).

I wanted to incorporate the Young Women Value colors as much as possible,

but couldn't find any digital papers that had all 8 together.

So I used one that had most of them to make my own invitations and printables.

Here's our invitation

(with our ward name crossed out for privacy)

And I made this printable to put in a frame for display.

(Print your own without the watermark HERE).

Here it is framed that night.

We purchased this YW Value Kiss Stickers printable for our take-away treat for the girls,
and printed off the poster in wallet size for the tags.

The girls wrote their names on these to put by their table displays.

(Print one without watermark HERE).

And this one was made to use for our programs.

(Print without watermark HERE).

One of our Beehives made cupcakes for our refreshments...

...and we also had candy in the YW value colors.

Everything turned out wonderful, 

and the girls really wowed us with their presentations!

YW Christmas Gift

Although it's too late to use this gift idea this year, 

I figured I'd share what we gave our young women for Christmas anyways.  

It's never too early to plan for next year!

We loved THIS IDEA, and decided to give our girls a pair of gloves.  

We found the gloves at a dollar store, and packaged them up 

in a cellophane bag topped with a tulle bow.  

The girls LOVED them!

Since we used gloves instead of mittens, 

I ended up creating my own version of the printable.

If you'd like a copy of my version of the printable without the watermark, 

you can find it HERE.

2013 Young Women in Excellence {Stand in Holy Places}

I've been busy the last couple of weeks planning and preparing

 for our Young Women in Excellence 

(this is a program in my church for young women ages 12-18 to celebrate 

what they've accomplished in the Personal Progress program throughout the year).  

Our theme was "Stand in Holy Places". 

 Here's a rundown of few of the things we did.

I bought THIS IMAGE of a high heel shoe made from the 8 Young Women Values.  

We used it for our invitations, in our programs, and made cupcake toppers with it.  

Here's our invitations (I loved THIS INVITATION so much that I patterned ours after it!).

I didn't get any pictures of our cupcakes with the toppers (darn!), 

but here's a few other pictures from that night.

'Stand Ye in Holy Places' printable can be found HERE.

 Value printables can be found HERE.

Our gift to the girls was these cute paper high heels filled with Hershey's Kisses.  

They were a hit!! (and a LOT of work!)  

We also gave them each a temple recommend holder 

that says "Stand Ye in Holy Places"

A close up of the cute shoes...

The printable pattern for these shoes can be found HERE.

We've got a wonderful group of girls in our ward!  

It was fun to be able to have a night to celebrate them 

and all the wonderful things they are doing!

DIY Magnetic Memo Board

As I was preparing to go to Girls Camp a few weeks ago, 

I was on the lookout for fun 'Secret Sister' gift ideas.

I came across THIS TUTORIAL for DIY Magnetic Memo Boards using 

Dollar Store metal burner covers, and knew I'd found what I was looking for!

I forgot to get pictures of all of them, so here's 2 of the 4 that I made:

I absolutely {LOVE} these!  Not only were they super easy to make, 

but they turned out adorable!  

Wouldn't they make fun birthday/Christmas/Mother's Day/Just Because gifts?  

We'll definitely be making more!

Stake Girls Camp 2013

Last week I was able to go to my very first Girls Camp since I was 

in the Young Women's program as a teenager.  I was a bit worried for a few reasons, 

the main one being that I don't enjoy camping!  But we all got through it 

and had a GREAT time!

The theme for our Stake Girls Camp was:

CARS  

"Driving Standards for a Divine Purpose".

Each ward was given a car from the Disney Movie as their 'mascot', 

as well as a value from the Young Women's Program.

Our ward got 'Fillmore' as our car, and Faith as our value.  

I made this cute poster to hang up in our camp.  

(sorry...I blocked out our ward name for privacy!).

The highlight of camp (besides testimony meeting), was being able to do 

a service project for  Tiny Tim's Foundation for Kids.  

We helped sand and stain hundreds of wooden toy cars that will eventually 

be sent to kids all over the world.  The girls LOVED it!! 

Another highlight was participating in "Singing in the Trees."

It's a tradition that started several years ago in our Stake, and the girls 

look forward to it every year.  It is done at dark, right before our testimony meetings.  

Each ward gathers in a spot in the trees, and waits for their turn 

to sing a song (we sang "I Walk By Faith"), as we shine flashlights

into the trees.  I'm not explaining it super well, but it was a beautiful, spiritual moment, 

and was the perfect way to head into our Ward Testimony Meeting.

Instead of using flashlights for 'Singing in the Trees', our ward made Mason Jar Lanterns

to use.  They were super easy to make, and looked beautiful in the dark!

(HERE'S a great tutorial.  We used contact paper instead of vinyl, 

and electric tea lights instead of candles).

I was terrible about taking pictures of everything while we were there, but did get 

some pictures of 2 handouts that my secretary and I made for the girls.

This is the one made by my secretary.  She got the idea from HERE.

And here's the one I made (quote is from this talk, handout idea from HERE).

I don't have a file from my secretary, but if you'd like a copy of 

the 'Glow' handout file without the watermark, you can access it HERE!

We ended up having 20 girls from our ward attend Girls Camp.  

I loved being able to spend time with them away from 'real life'.  It gave me a chance 

to get to know them better, and to just have FUN together!

Can't wait until next year! 

'Prophets' YW Handout

Yesterday I gave the YW lesson "Why is it important to listen to and follow the living prophets."  I created this handout (I think this is my all time favorite picture of President Monson!), and thought I would share.

If you would like a copy of this handout without the watermark, you can access the file HERE.

Have a great Monday!

General Conference Quote Book (YW Activity Idea)

I was in charge of our last Young Women's activity, and came up 

with this fun Paper Bag Quote Book for the girls to make.

Inside of the pages are different quotes from General Conference talks, and a place 

where the girls can write any notes they took while listening to or reading the talks.

I just searched online for the quote printables, and printed them in wallet size to fit on the pages.

Another idea I had (but didn't quite finish), was to type up each talk that the quote came from and print them off small enough that they could fit in the pocket of the paper bag.  

I only got this one done...and it took me forever to get it the right size!

Here's a shot of it inside the pocket.

I think instead, I'll just print off each talk, fold them up, and slip them inside the pockets.

It was fun to see which quotes the girls chose, and to watch them 

put their little quote books together.

If you're interested in making your own:

* HERE'S a good tutorial for the paper bag album.
* I've pinned a bunch of printable quotes HERE.  
* I made my own 'Notes' grid sheets, but they are based on THESE from Valorie Brown Designs.

2013 YW Notebooks

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that I'm a note taker.  Especially at church!  I find that if I write down what I've learned, it's easier for me to remember.  And I love that I can make special notes to myself on how I can apply principles being taught.

This year we decided to purchase notebooks for the Young Women in our ward to take notes in during our lessons.  The new Youth Curriculum is AWESOME, and they are learning about valuable topics that apply to THEM each week.

On Tuesday, we finally got around to letting them personalize their notebooks.  We provided them with some scrapbook paper that has the Young Women values printed on it, and let them decide how they wanted to decorate their notebooks.

This is one I did as an example to give them ideas on how they could use the paper.

Another one made by me.

And here's a few of the notebooks that the girls made.  They turned out so cute!

The notebooks are kept in the Young Women's room (we don't let the girls take them home during the week).  We also have some fun colored gel pens for them to use, as well as some clear tape so they can tape any handouts they are given in their notebooks.  So far, they have been a HUGE success!!  It's so neat seeing the girls write down their thoughts each week!  Hopefully at the end of the year, their notebooks will be FULL of notes and insights that they learned during their lessons!

YW Lesson Handout

Happy New Year!!

Crazy to think that it's 2013!!  I swear, the older I get, the faster time seems to go!  Does it feel that way to anyone else, or is it just me?

This week I'm making final preparations for my very first solo lesson in Young Women's.  I've been studying the topic for weeks now, and feel pretty good about it.  I'm just hoping I don't get stage fright once I stand up in front of all our young women and leaders!!

The lesson I'm giving is "Who am I, and who can I become?" from the new 'Come Follow Me' curriculum.  Let me just say, I LOVE this new curriculum, and am SO excited to see the youth become more involved in the lessons!!

I had a handout idea in mind, and searched online to see if I could find one already made.  After searching for way too long, I decided to just make one myself.  The quote comes from President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk from a General Young Women Meeting titled, "Your Happily Ever After".  

Making this handout sort of broke the ice for me.  I've always just relied on searching online for cute handouts, but now that I know I can do it myself, I just might make more!!

If you'd like to use this handout and would like a copy without the watermark, you can access the file HERE!