Hi friends, I wanted to share with you this AWESOME printable kit that can help with introducing the 2017 LDS Mutual theme. The theme this year comes from James 1:5, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given […]

Last night was our 2012 New Beginnings... (invite: formatted to 4x6 and printed as a photo) (credit for PU hero girl: DesigZbydede ...

Although the idea of "Girl on Fire" for a New Beginning theme isn't original I think the young women pulled it off brilliantly. One of our Laurels found the idea and did all the research for refreshment and decorating ideas. The rest of the work was delegated between the girls and leaders. I put the invitations together using the official movie poster fonts. The girls created fireball poofs to hang from the ceiling. And a welcome poster…. Our Beehive advisor created the dessert table and created labels for all the food using the font from the books. I was so excited to see she'd done that! Keeping with the color over black theme, each girl painted a value onto black poster board and explained how the value keeps her spiritual flame burning. We used all the appropriate labels for things such as: Values = Districts Girls Explaining the Values = Tributes One of our girls received her Young Woman in Excellence that night = Victor And the songs: The Spirit of God...like a fire is burning... and The Lord is My Light. Of course there were speakers, a skit, and some teaching involved so everyone got to do something. The skit was made up by the girls and was hilarious. The prompt was "Show us what Personal Progress is and how it works." So their skit included introducing PP to a classmate, carrying out a service project with her—raking leaves—and then going to a leader (played by a girl of course) to get it checked off in their books. We let the girls practice the skit a week beforehand—I'm glad because we got a lot of blank faces at first LOL. It was a great evening…the Stake YW Leaders were there and couldn't stop their praising. I LOVE that it was all headed up and started with one of the young women. I enjoy seeing what they want to do and the pleasure (and pride) on their faces when it all turns out. I'm sorry, I do not have a template of the invitation to share at this time. (I think I deleted it by accident ugh.) But here's a .png torch file. Click on it to open it full size, then right click to download it. Note, this is the official logo for the Young Women organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It has been modified to fit this theme.

The invitation for the event. Should be a really fun night. In the base of the ship, on the invitation, I have listed all the values. In the next couple of weeks I need to make signage for all the stops on the cruise. We will stop at places like Port Faith and Divine Nature Bay. At each stop, the girls will learn about each of the YW values. Our Bishop (the captain) will end the evening at the last port of call. I hope our new beehives will have a wonderful evening as they are introduced to our Young Women program. Have a wonderful Sunday! if you want the file...go to http://buttercupsketches.weebly.com/

We had our new beginnings a few weeks ago and I thought I'd post a few things that we did. We got the theme idea from the blog Go Forward with Faith. Our girls loved it! The invitations We made these 4x6 invitations And attached them to the cute "tickets" Found HERE. This was the invitation for the night We had a "playbook" for all the girls when they came in. (The parents LOVED this) Here are a few things we put in their playbooks Important dates for the year A team roster a list of the combined YM/YW activities for the year The Pregame Pep Talk Schedule (lesson Schedule) And a Practice Schedule (Activity schedule) The Mia Maids were in charge of the Game for the night. They did a great job. They had questions about Personal Progress, and the new Strength of Youth booklet. We were just in our RS room so we didn't go too crazy with decorations. The Sunday before New Beginnings I had all the classes set Goals for the Year. I had them displayed at New Beginnings and talked a little about them. We have this hanging in our YW room every Sunday to remind them to work on their goals! For Food we served YUMMY Nachos. We just had chips, cheese, salsa, guacamole, Cafe Rio Style Chicken and Sweet pork, Sour Cream, Olives, etc... We just had water bottles for the drink. The night was a Huge Success and everyone had a great time!

Hi friends, I wanted to share with you this AWESOME printable kit that can help with introducing the 2017 LDS Mutual theme. The theme this year comes from James 1:5, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given […]

Although the idea of "Girl on Fire" for a New Beginning theme isn't original I think the young women pulled it off brilliantly. One of our Laurels found the idea and did all the research for refreshment and decorating ideas. The rest of the work was delegated between the girls and leaders. I put the invitations together using the official movie poster fonts. The girls created fireball poofs to hang from the ceiling. And a welcome poster…. Our Beehive advisor created the dessert table and created labels for all the food using the font from the books. I was so excited to see she'd done that! Keeping with the color over black theme, each girl painted a value onto black poster board and explained how the value keeps her spiritual flame burning. We used all the appropriate labels for things such as: Values = Districts Girls Explaining the Values = Tributes One of our girls received her Young Woman in Excellence that night = Victor And the songs: The Spirit of God...like a fire is burning... and The Lord is My Light. Of course there were speakers, a skit, and some teaching involved so everyone got to do something. The skit was made up by the girls and was hilarious. The prompt was "Show us what Personal Progress is and how it works." So their skit included introducing PP to a classmate, carrying out a service project with her—raking leaves—and then going to a leader (played by a girl of course) to get it checked off in their books. We let the girls practice the skit a week beforehand—I'm glad because we got a lot of blank faces at first LOL. It was a great evening…the Stake YW Leaders were there and couldn't stop their praising. I LOVE that it was all headed up and started with one of the young women. I enjoy seeing what they want to do and the pleasure (and pride) on their faces when it all turns out. I'm sorry, I do not have a template of the invitation to share at this time. (I think I deleted it by accident ugh.) But here's a .png torch file. Click on it to open it full size, then right click to download it. Note, this is the official logo for the Young Women organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It has been modified to fit this theme.

For everyone in the Young Women's organization New Beginnings is right around the corner. It is a great time when we welcome new12 year old girls into the Young Women program. I made up an invitation and program if anyone would like to use it. When I think of new beginnings and young women, a

Great for Young Women! Celebrate You Printable 8.5x11 Download Here:

We had our New Beginnings last night. It was a fun casual night. The theme of our Night was Adventure Awaits... Come see what the YW will be "UP" to in 2013 We will be using this theme along with the Stand in Holy places throughout the year. I Love President Monsons Talk Your Celestial Journey I thought it went perfect with our Adventure theme. Gaze upward, Look inward- This is where I introduced the YW values and the purpose of Personal Progress Reach outward, and Press forward. Jane found a bunch of these old suit cases at a local thrift shop. We painted the outside and then modpodged cute scrapbook paper on the inside. This is where everyone first came in. The suitcase had the program for the night, and also a little packet of what is going on in 2013. For our SKIT- We had one of the Laurels dress like Russell from the movie up. She had a little sash. The other laurels each talked about a YW value. She would then pin that value on "russells" sash. I just let each Laurel decide what she was going to do for her Value. They were really cute and some of them were pretty dang funny. I wish I had a script of what they said! I had this globe that I thought would work perfect for our year. I put on sticker letters and then spray painted the globe white. Peeled off the stickers then to reveal the stand in holy places. I put this globe out every Sunday. The girls sign in with things that they have done throughout the week to "stand in Holy Places" it has been fun to see what they have written on it. (Seminary, Sports, FHE, Temple attendance, activities with friends etc...) I used 2 build-a-bear boxes for my UP house. I cut one in half to do the porch side of the house. I then covered it with Scrapbook paper I had on hand. (build-a-bear was so nice and just gave me the 2 boxes for free) I forgot to take a picture of our cute food table until it was almost gone... We had cute little make your own fruit pizza's. We had fruit in all the YW value colors (Pineapple, kiwi, strawberries, mandarin oranges, blueberries, purple grapes, golden bananas, and the frosting was white) For the new beehives coming in 2013 we gave a cute little 7-up (original idea found at Marci Coombs blog), and UP2You gum. We had each laurel "interview" a new girl asking her simple questions like her favorite color, subject in school, what kind of animal she would be, what she's most looking forward to about YW etc... We are giving the girls these cute little bottle cap necklaces for their birthdays this year. They are like the cute lil bottle cap pin Ellie gives Carl in the Movie UP. I found them at Hobby Lobby and just used metal stamps to put their initial In my talk I talked about how anywhere we stand can be a holy place. (which is the general YW theme this year) We gave each girl her own lil adventure book. We challenged them to fill it up this year with all their adventures. A place they could put little handouts, pictures of YW activities, notes from lessons, anything that reminds them of all the places they "STAND". My Bishop in his closing remarks talked about the Adventure book in the movie. He said that in the beginning they put the picture of Where they thought their adventure would be. But at the end of the movie Carl finally sees that Ellie had put the adventures of their everyday lives. He said we should make everyday good and something we are proud of. I thought it was cute he Tied in the movie with his remarks (: I got these smash books on such a good clearance sale at twopeasinabucket.  We added alittle pocket in the front where the girls can put handouts if they'd like. Here is an outline of our program Here are a few things we put in their little packet. Things we will be "UP" to this next year And here are the invites incase you missed the previous post. We rolled them up and attached them to balloons!

Many months ago, (back when we were planning our "Daughter of a King" YWIE) my presidency and I stumbled upon these paintings/prints of women from the scriptures. The paintings are so beautiful that we wanted an evening that focused just on these women from the scriptures. ~PROGRAM~ "Women of Value:The Treasures Within" New Beginnings theme was born. We decided that we would write a program that focused on the 8 different YW values and then tell the story about each of these women. That was easier said than done. I started writing the program and a writer I am not!! So after only writing the story of Hannah for the value of FAITH (4 hours=4 paragraphs)...I gave up!! My second counselor, the LOVELY and WELL VERSED Jamie Peiper, volunteered to finish it for me. She did an AMAZING job writing a program. With the permission of Jamie, I've attached the program for anyone else who'd like to use these paintings for their New Beginnings or YWIE. Thought we'd try to save others some time. She did such a wonderful job on it, that it really should be used again. I began the program by talking about "earthly treasures" vs "spiritual treasures." When we gain a testimony of each value, we are literally laying up our treasures in heaven. We then had one YW read the story for each value. (so 8 YW participate) It was FAB-U-LOUS! CLICK HERE to download a copy of the program ~DECORATIONS~ We kept it simple...YES that's right...I did my best to keep it simple!! We really wanted to art to be the focus of the evening. So here is a look. We framed all the prints in large frames borrowed from our YW leaders. Then in a smaller black frame labeled each picture with the name of the value & the name of the women. We bought fresh flowers in each value color and put them in a vase next to the pictures. We gave these flowers to the 11 yr. old that will be advancing into YW this year when we recognized them. In the center of it all, we framed a beautiful picture of the temple. I found this site where you can download and print these photos of various temples. Thank you to Mindy Evans Photography for providing this phenomenal photos to all of us who are always online looking for them :) you know you can never have too many pics of the temple when you serve in YW. ~PROGRAMS~ ~DESSERT~ we served homemade cheesecake and had 8 different sauces for people to top the cheesecake with. One sauce in each value color, of course. Our toppings we used wereFaith: White ChocolateDivine Nature: Blueberry syrupIndividual Worth: Strawberry SyrupKnowledge: KiwiChoice & Accountability: PeachGood Works: PineappleIntegrity: Blackberries Virtue: Butterscotch ~HANDOUTS~ We made a small box for each YW to take home with her. We filled it with choc. treasures. 8 in each box. One wrapped in each of the value colors and labeled with the value sticker. So, so, so cute!! And CHEAP!! Less that $1 a girl. Plus, the girls always love it when the handout has something to do with food. Good Luck to all who haven't yet done their New Beginnings program. Hope this helps someone!!

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!!

Finally. I've been holding on to these pictures for a while now. I just really needed to edit them down a bit. There were so many good ones that I find it nearly impossible to choose. Anyway, as the title...

Looking for an idea for New Beginnings or Young Women in Excellence or even Activity Days? Here’s an idea that we used for New Beginnings this year. We created a beautiful evening centered ar…

We had our New Beginnings last night. It was a fun casual night. The theme of our Night was Adventure Awaits... Come see what the YW will be "UP" to in 2013 We will be using this theme along with the Stand in Holy places throughout the year. I Love President Monsons Talk Your Celestial Journey I thought it went perfect with our Adventure theme. Gaze upward, Look inward- This is where I introduced the YW values and the purpose of Personal Progress Reach outward, and Press forward. Jane found a bunch of these old suit cases at a local thrift shop. We painted the outside and then modpodged cute scrapbook paper on the inside. This is where everyone first came in. The suitcase had the program for the night, and also a little packet of what is going on in 2013. For our SKIT- We had one of the Laurels dress like Russell from the movie up. She had a little sash. The other laurels each talked about a YW value. She would then pin that value on "russells" sash. I just let each Laurel decide what she was going to do for her Value. They were really cute and some of them were pretty dang funny. I wish I had a script of what they said! I had this globe that I thought would work perfect for our year. I put on sticker letters and then spray painted the globe white. Peeled off the stickers then to reveal the stand in holy places. I put this globe out every Sunday. The girls sign in with things that they have done throughout the week to "stand in Holy Places" it has been fun to see what they have written on it. (Seminary, Sports, FHE, Temple attendance, activities with friends etc...) I used 2 build-a-bear boxes for my UP house. I cut one in half to do the porch side of the house. I then covered it with Scrapbook paper I had on hand. (build-a-bear was so nice and just gave me the 2 boxes for free) I forgot to take a picture of our cute food table until it was almost gone... We had cute little make your own fruit pizza's. We had fruit in all the YW value colors (Pineapple, kiwi, strawberries, mandarin oranges, blueberries, purple grapes, golden bananas, and the frosting was white) For the new beehives coming in 2013 we gave a cute little 7-up (original idea found at Marci Coombs blog), and UP2You gum. We had each laurel "interview" a new girl asking her simple questions like her favorite color, subject in school, what kind of animal she would be, what she's most looking forward to about YW etc... We are giving the girls these cute little bottle cap necklaces for their birthdays this year. They are like the cute lil bottle cap pin Ellie gives Carl in the Movie UP. I found them at Hobby Lobby and just used metal stamps to put their initial In my talk I talked about how anywhere we stand can be a holy place. (which is the general YW theme this year) We gave each girl her own lil adventure book. We challenged them to fill it up this year with all their adventures. A place they could put little handouts, pictures of YW activities, notes from lessons, anything that reminds them of all the places they "STAND". My Bishop in his closing remarks talked about the Adventure book in the movie. He said that in the beginning they put the picture of Where they thought their adventure would be. But at the end of the movie Carl finally sees that Ellie had put the adventures of their everyday lives. He said we should make everyday good and something we are proud of. I thought it was cute he Tied in the movie with his remarks (: I got these smash books on such a good clearance sale at twopeasinabucket.  We added alittle pocket in the front where the girls can put handouts if they'd like. Here is an outline of our program Here are a few things we put in their little packet. Things we will be "UP" to this next year And here are the invites incase you missed the previous post. We rolled them up and attached them to balloons!

Our theme for New Beginnings this year was D.O.T.S. Depend On The Savior (which we found all over Pinterest. We presented the class presiden...

Many months ago, (back when we were planning our "Daughter of a King" YWIE) my presidency and I stumbled upon these paintings/prints of women from the scriptures. The paintings are so beautiful that we wanted an evening that focused just on these women from the scriptures. ~PROGRAM~ "Women of Value:The Treasures Within" New Beginnings theme was born. We decided that we would write a program that focused on the 8 different YW values and then tell the story about each of these women. That was easier said than done. I started writing the program and a writer I am not!! So after only writing the story of Hannah for the value of FAITH (4 hours=4 paragraphs)...I gave up!! My second counselor, the LOVELY and WELL VERSED Jamie Peiper, volunteered to finish it for me. She did an AMAZING job writing a program. With the permission of Jamie, I've attached the program for anyone else who'd like to use these paintings for their New Beginnings or YWIE. Thought we'd try to save others some time. She did such a wonderful job on it, that it really should be used again. I began the program by talking about "earthly treasures" vs "spiritual treasures." When we gain a testimony of each value, we are literally laying up our treasures in heaven. We then had one YW read the story for each value. (so 8 YW participate) It was FAB-U-LOUS! CLICK HERE to download a copy of the program ~DECORATIONS~ We kept it simple...YES that's right...I did my best to keep it simple!! We really wanted to art to be the focus of the evening. So here is a look. We framed all the prints in large frames borrowed from our YW leaders. Then in a smaller black frame labeled each picture with the name of the value & the name of the women. We bought fresh flowers in each value color and put them in a vase next to the pictures. We gave these flowers to the 11 yr. old that will be advancing into YW this year when we recognized them. In the center of it all, we framed a beautiful picture of the temple. I found this site where you can download and print these photos of various temples. Thank you to Mindy Evans Photography for providing this phenomenal photos to all of us who are always online looking for them :) you know you can never have too many pics of the temple when you serve in YW. ~PROGRAMS~ ~DESSERT~ we served homemade cheesecake and had 8 different sauces for people to top the cheesecake with. One sauce in each value color, of course. Our toppings we used wereFaith: White ChocolateDivine Nature: Blueberry syrupIndividual Worth: Strawberry SyrupKnowledge: KiwiChoice & Accountability: PeachGood Works: PineappleIntegrity: Blackberries Virtue: Butterscotch ~HANDOUTS~ We made a small box for each YW to take home with her. We filled it with choc. treasures. 8 in each box. One wrapped in each of the value colors and labeled with the value sticker. So, so, so cute!! And CHEAP!! Less that $1 a girl. Plus, the girls always love it when the handout has something to do with food. Good Luck to all who haven't yet done their New Beginnings program. Hope this helps someone!!

I’ve had many requests to add New Beginnings versions of my Be the Light printables and I’m excited to announce, they’re here! Plus, I’ve got a fabulous Be the Light freebie…

Have you ever wondered about the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? It's a familiar tale, but there's always something new to discover. Today, let's turn to the beginning of this story, found in Genesis 3

New Beginnings is such an exciting event, especially for the entering Beehives!! If you are new to the Young Women program you might be wondering what New Beginnings is.... on lds.org it states: "New Beginnings is an annual event for all young women and their parents. Young women who will reach the age of 12 in the coming year are also invited to attend with their parents. It may be held during Mutual. This event provides an opportunity for leaders to express their love for the young women, encourage parents to help their daughters in Personal Progress, and introduce new young women to the young women program. Possible subjects to address include: Explanation of Personal Progress. Presentation of the young women theme, logo, and motto. Recognition of the young women and their accomplishments in Personal Progress. Overview of the youth theme and a discussion of activities planned for the year." With that our Young Women's presidency set out to pan the activity with help from the girls and our board (aka advisers). The beautiful part about our church, is the fact that everybody's talents can be utilized to make something great happen. This is exactly what happened for this activity. Our amazing Young Women president came up with the theme and program for the night. Step one: Choose a THEME.... our theme went perfectly with the Mutual theme for 2016. We choose to have a "Wizard of Oz" theme. After watching the Mutual theme video, (click here for it), the program just seemed to come perfectly together around it. Step two: Plan and use the girls and leaders talents! We had a board meeting where everyone was given their assignments. As I said, utilize talents. Step Three: Prep work and bringing everything together. This is a big step, because so many people are involved doing different things. So I am going to break it into sub-steps. Decorations: Our secretary is AMAZINGLY talented! You can check her out at Her Tool Belt and Amys-Projects. She cut this beautiful temple out of some plywood, painted it and made the "There's No Place Like Home" sign. For the template and instructions for the temple and sign click HERE. The temple was just leaned up against the wall and the sign was actually hung from the bars of the basketball hoop. She also made the beautiful rainbow from balloons. Our Personal Progress specialist is a party decorating master!! Everything she has decorated for has turned out absolutely stuffing. She had made these beautiful poppie flowers for a wedding that we reused for our night. For a tutorial for these flowers, you can check this one out it is close to what she did: Tissue Paper Flowers. She also brought some white lights to string around the some areas in the cultural hall. The invites, Programs and paper handouts: This is where my specialties came in :) I had made these papers for my Beehives that we decided to give all of the girls for Personal Progress as well as our Book of Mormon Challenge. For those printables, here is the link to the post: Personal Progress Printables and Book of Mormon Reading Challenge For the invites I made these, here is a sample of what ours said as well as an editable version. To edit, just download the Free JPEG Image and edit it in a photo editing program such as Pic Monkey, Photo Shop, or Paint.net. Same thing with the Programs. Free Jpeg Downloads Program Cover & Program inside. We printed the programs at the church house on yellow copy paper. They turned out cute. We had them on a table at the entrance in a basket. (The font used on the program was Aller) Some more prep work went into the bricks for our yellow brick road!! One of our counselors took over this project. She printed the names and such off onto just plain yellow copy paper. Favor's and Take Homes: We like to spotlight our new incoming Beehives. To do this we have their parents fill out a little form. Here is that Free PDF Download. Then that night we gave them a little take home gift. Our YW President put together these cute jars of lemon drops. Here is the Free PDF Download that could go with it. Then we also did a fun little take home for all of the girls. These ruby slippers are adorable!! Just a little caution, everyone who made them said they were a mess to put together! You can get the template for the shoes from Amy here. Our ladies used mod podge and then sparked glitter on it. They turned out absolutely adorable. If you didn't want to have as big of a mess I am sure you could use glitter spray or purchase red glitter paper. In the shoes they put some gold nugget candies in a cellophane bag and tied it with blue gingham fabric. They were then all placed on a table at the front of the room and used as part of the decor. Refreshments: Homemade Bread and Jam in cute baskets with gingham fabric, YES please!! What a hit and a perfect way to end our night!! Step Four: The Event (AKA PROGRAM). It all came together into a fabulous night. So, I am just going to lay it out for you exactly, well close enough to how the night went. First, as the girls entered the door we gave them a yellow paper (aka brick) with another young women's name on it. They were instructed that there would be a time in the program that they would need to come up and say something AMAZING they have noticed in that girl. We also handed out additional papers (aka bricks) to the girls who had parts on the program, which were: We had a Laurel whose sign said Courage she stood for the lion; another Laurel's sign said Love and she stood for the Tin Man; another Laurel's sign said Wisdom and she stood for the Scarecrow. We had a sign that said Laurels, a sign that said Mia Maids, a sign that said Beehives, which was given to each of the respective class presidents. Then we had a paper for each of the Young Women values. Then a paper for each of the New incoming Beehives, a paper that had each of the leader's names on them and lastly a paper that said Press Forward. To begin the program we had an opening song, "Press Forward Saint". Then an opening prayer. Next, a young women led us in the Young Women Theme. Our Young Women's President then shared the calendar with the young women and their parents and talked a little about camp. Then I, spoke about Personal Progress (Showed the new beehives what they would be receiving when I came to meet with them and gave a little plug for the rest of the girls about Personal Progress. We gave all of them the Personal Progress Calendar (printable above) and spotlighted out girl who just received her Young Women Medallion. Here is the meat of the program.... We had a special guest Dorothy (one of our advisers) wandering around, saying that she knew where she wanted to go, but she just didn't know how to get there. Our Young Women President told her that we could help her. So first we had our Courageous Lion (aka laurel) come up and speak of a time she was courageous in her life. Then she went and laid the first brick (aka paper) down on our path to the temple. Next, we had our Tin Man come and share a time she showed love and she laid her brick down. Then, we had our Scarecrow come share what she is doing to develop wisdom and she laid her brick down. Next, we had our class president come up and they each read something about their class motto and they laid their bricks down on the path, building it closer to the temple. Then we had the girls come up and read about each one of the values, and a brick was laid for each of the values. Then, a row at a time we had our girls come up and each say something about the girls whose name was on their brick, then they went and added that name to the yellow brick road path. But the path was still not complete. Our amazing president then said something, well two things that were very thoughtful and kind about each of the Young Women leaders and our names were added to the path. Lastly, she spoke about how all of these things are great and can help us on our path, but sometimes things get difficult and we need to PRESS FORWARD with faith in Christ, through those challenges. We then showed the girls the 2016 Mutual Theme Video. We also showed the girls a video our president had put together with pictures from the past year to get them excited and it was set to the music of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". If I remember right I think we showed that right before we did the the New Beehive spotlights. Our Bishop closed the meeting with some amazing remarks and our path was finished. We closed with a prayer and then it was refreshments and mingle time. The refreshments were a hit, so yummy!! Here is the finished path... Click here for more Mutual Ideas!!

This year for our New Beginnings we are having a Boot Camp theme. Here are the invites for the event. Here are the rest of the details of our night. http://alittlecrafting.blogspot.com/2014/02/new-beginnings-2014.html

It's been a while since we've had a Sundae Served Saturday! This week I wanted to share with you my Mom's fantastic New Beginnings! This is where the girls coming into our churches girly youth program, Young Women, come to learn a little more about the program and begin to feel welcomed by their leaders and new friends. Most importantly the Young Women have a theme in which they strive to Live the Young Women Values. Those values are Faith, Divine Nature, Choice and Accountability, Knowledge, Good Works, Integrity and Virtue. Each value has a color to associate it. Mom found her idea HERE on Sugardoodle.com for a Seuss Themed New Beginnings. She used most of the ideas she found from there. She wanted to start the night by reading the book Oh The Places You'll Go! by Dr Seuss. But, she asked me to rewrite the book so that it would match there theme Stand in Holy Places. I was super excited to do this for her! And thus Oh The Places You'll Stand was born! THEN... the very next sunday a lady in our ward handed me a copy of Green Eggs and Ham (The Missionary Version). Hilarious! So then I had to make sure mine would be able to fit the pictures in the book so you could cut out the poem and paste it in like hers! Tada!!! It looks awesome right? The book ends up talking about Young Women Values, what each of them stand for, and a lot about the different places you will stand. It's meant to be uplifting and remind you that when you stand somewhere scary all you need to do is remember the values YOU stand for and you will be okay! I created a printable which you can get BY CLICKING HERE! You just cut it out and paste it into the book! I tried to match the font perfectly, but I am no Dr Seuss. So be sure to cut a little extra room around the letters and trim down if you need too. Awesome Sauce right? I love it! Click HERE if you didn't click the printable the first time! The font I used for the cover is HERE. It's called Doctor Soos Bold. I can't wait to show my friend on Sunday! So first my mom read the story. The gym behind them was closed off by curtains. When she finished reading they opened them so the girls could see Dr. Seuss Valueland! The truffula trees are made from pipe covers and tissue paper. She wanted pool noodles but couldn't find them at this time of the year. My brother downloaded some Seuss music which was playing in the background (Mommy was good at enlisting help!) Tables were set up around the area and each value had a colored table. Each value also had a Suess book assigned to it. Faith (White) - Horton Hears A Who Divine Nature - The Sneetches Good Works - The Kings Stilts Individual Worth - I Wish I Had Duck Feet Knowledge - I Can Read With My Eyes Wide Shut Choice and Accountability - The Lorax Integrity - Horton Hatches An Egg Virtue - I Had Trouble Getting To Solla Sollew Beforehand Mom had the girls make mini Truffula trees out of pom poms and pixi sticks as a wednesday night activity. When people came to visit their table the girls would read a little something they wrote about how the value pertained to the Dr. Suess book. Doesn't it look great! The girls also spent the activity making these awesome paper lanterns! After walking around the Seuss room the girls were all invited to another area for a surprise performance! My mom had the young men act out "If Dr. Seuss Wrote the Book of Mormon!" Click HERE for that printable. Afterwards they played a game where the girls were asked questions about values. If they had done something in the scenario they had to stand up. If they stood up they got a gum-ball of that value color. At the end she asked them which color they had the least of and then challenged them to work on that value all year. The link where she found that idea is HERE. They have great instructions. Then they all drank Pink Ink and ate cake! I can just imagine how amazing it all looked in person. I am sure my words don't do it justice. Mom said when the girls turned around for the Seuss room everyone gasped! Don't the girls look so happy! See their tiny Truffula Trees? I guess tons of them wanted to take home the giantic truffula trees! What a great reminder of the evening. What an amazing thing they all pulled off together! Makes me miss being in Young Women!

New Beginnings is such an exciting event, especially for the entering Beehives!! If you are new to the Young Women program you might be wondering what New Beginnings is.... on lds.org it states: "New Beginnings is an annual event for all young women and their parents. Young women who will reach the age of 12 in the coming year are also invited to attend with their parents. It may be held during Mutual. This event provides an opportunity for leaders to express their love for the young women, encourage parents to help their daughters in Personal Progress, and introduce new young women to the young women program. Possible subjects to address include: Explanation of Personal Progress. Presentation of the young women theme, logo, and motto. Recognition of the young women and their accomplishments in Personal Progress. Overview of the youth theme and a discussion of activities planned for the year." With that our Young Women's presidency set out to pan the activity with help from the girls and our board (aka advisers). The beautiful part about our church, is the fact that everybody's talents can be utilized to make something great happen. This is exactly what happened for this activity. Our amazing Young Women president came up with the theme and program for the night. Step one: Choose a THEME.... our theme went perfectly with the Mutual theme for 2016. We choose to have a "Wizard of Oz" theme. After watching the Mutual theme video, (click here for it), the program just seemed to come perfectly together around it. Step two: Plan and use the girls and leaders talents! We had a board meeting where everyone was given their assignments. As I said, utilize talents. Step Three: Prep work and bringing everything together. This is a big step, because so many people are involved doing different things. So I am going to break it into sub-steps. Decorations: Our secretary is AMAZINGLY talented! You can check her out at Her Tool Belt and Amys-Projects. She cut this beautiful temple out of some plywood, painted it and made the "There's No Place Like Home" sign. For the template and instructions for the temple and sign click HERE. The temple was just leaned up against the wall and the sign was actually hung from the bars of the basketball hoop. She also made the beautiful rainbow from balloons. Our Personal Progress specialist is a party decorating master!! Everything she has decorated for has turned out absolutely stuffing. She had made these beautiful poppie flowers for a wedding that we reused for our night. For a tutorial for these flowers, you can check this one out it is close to what she did: Tissue Paper Flowers. She also brought some white lights to string around the some areas in the cultural hall. The invites, Programs and paper handouts: This is where my specialties came in :) I had made these papers for my Beehives that we decided to give all of the girls for Personal Progress as well as our Book of Mormon Challenge. For those printables, here is the link to the post: Personal Progress Printables and Book of Mormon Reading Challenge For the invites I made these, here is a sample of what ours said as well as an editable version. To edit, just download the Free JPEG Image and edit it in a photo editing program such as Pic Monkey, Photo Shop, or Paint.net. Same thing with the Programs. Free Jpeg Downloads Program Cover & Program inside. We printed the programs at the church house on yellow copy paper. They turned out cute. We had them on a table at the entrance in a basket. (The font used on the program was Aller) Some more prep work went into the bricks for our yellow brick road!! One of our counselors took over this project. She printed the names and such off onto just plain yellow copy paper. Favor's and Take Homes: We like to spotlight our new incoming Beehives. To do this we have their parents fill out a little form. Here is that Free PDF Download. Then that night we gave them a little take home gift. Our YW President put together these cute jars of lemon drops. Here is the Free PDF Download that could go with it. Then we also did a fun little take home for all of the girls. These ruby slippers are adorable!! Just a little caution, everyone who made them said they were a mess to put together! You can get the template for the shoes from Amy here. Our ladies used mod podge and then sparked glitter on it. They turned out absolutely adorable. If you didn't want to have as big of a mess I am sure you could use glitter spray or purchase red glitter paper. In the shoes they put some gold nugget candies in a cellophane bag and tied it with blue gingham fabric. They were then all placed on a table at the front of the room and used as part of the decor. Refreshments: Homemade Bread and Jam in cute baskets with gingham fabric, YES please!! What a hit and a perfect way to end our night!! Step Four: The Event (AKA PROGRAM). It all came together into a fabulous night. So, I am just going to lay it out for you exactly, well close enough to how the night went. First, as the girls entered the door we gave them a yellow paper (aka brick) with another young women's name on it. They were instructed that there would be a time in the program that they would need to come up and say something AMAZING they have noticed in that girl. We also handed out additional papers (aka bricks) to the girls who had parts on the program, which were: We had a Laurel whose sign said Courage she stood for the lion; another Laurel's sign said Love and she stood for the Tin Man; another Laurel's sign said Wisdom and she stood for the Scarecrow. We had a sign that said Laurels, a sign that said Mia Maids, a sign that said Beehives, which was given to each of the respective class presidents. Then we had a paper for each of the Young Women values. Then a paper for each of the New incoming Beehives, a paper that had each of the leader's names on them and lastly a paper that said Press Forward. To begin the program we had an opening song, "Press Forward Saint". Then an opening prayer. Next, a young women led us in the Young Women Theme. Our Young Women's President then shared the calendar with the young women and their parents and talked a little about camp. Then I, spoke about Personal Progress (Showed the new beehives what they would be receiving when I came to meet with them and gave a little plug for the rest of the girls about Personal Progress. We gave all of them the Personal Progress Calendar (printable above) and spotlighted out girl who just received her Young Women Medallion. Here is the meat of the program.... We had a special guest Dorothy (one of our advisers) wandering around, saying that she knew where she wanted to go, but she just didn't know how to get there. Our Young Women President told her that we could help her. So first we had our Courageous Lion (aka laurel) come up and speak of a time she was courageous in her life. Then she went and laid the first brick (aka paper) down on our path to the temple. Next, we had our Tin Man come and share a time she showed love and she laid her brick down. Then, we had our Scarecrow come share what she is doing to develop wisdom and she laid her brick down. Next, we had our class president come up and they each read something about their class motto and they laid their bricks down on the path, building it closer to the temple. Then we had the girls come up and read about each one of the values, and a brick was laid for each of the values. Then, a row at a time we had our girls come up and each say something about the girls whose name was on their brick, then they went and added that name to the yellow brick road path. But the path was still not complete. Our amazing president then said something, well two things that were very thoughtful and kind about each of the Young Women leaders and our names were added to the path. Lastly, she spoke about how all of these things are great and can help us on our path, but sometimes things get difficult and we need to PRESS FORWARD with faith in Christ, through those challenges. We then showed the girls the 2016 Mutual Theme Video. We also showed the girls a video our president had put together with pictures from the past year to get them excited and it was set to the music of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". If I remember right I think we showed that right before we did the the New Beehive spotlights. Our Bishop closed the meeting with some amazing remarks and our path was finished. We closed with a prayer and then it was refreshments and mingle time. The refreshments were a hit, so yummy!! Here is the finished path... Click here for more Mutual Ideas!!

Despite our best efforts, sometimes the class activities we have planned just don't stretch out the entire 1 1/2 hours of Mutual, so I w...

I've been so excited about this post since it happened and now I finally can spend the time on it. I was kind of terrified of this part of Young Women's when I got called into it, the big activities and programs like New Beginnings. I am so grateful for the Internet because I was able to find an awesome idea for our New Beginnings when the time came to plan. NB is like a kick-off for the Young Women's program to get the girls excited for the new year and Personal Progress so there was a lot of pressure for it to be fantabulous! I jumped onto sugerdoodle.com and found the best idea, an Olympic new beginnings, which worked out amazingly because the 2010 Winter Olympics were being hosted in Vancouver, Canada this year. The lady on sugardoodle had templates and everything for invitations and scripts. I just cut and pasted and used and discarded what I wanted! It was awesome. The logo that was given was this amazing young women's torch symbol over 8 Olympic rings the colors of the values. I absolutely had to used it. I ended up color printed the logo on this shiny silver paper and then printed the invitation part on translucent vellum paper. They looked amazing especially because he Olympic ring logo was on a tan back ground to see the white (faith) ring. On the silvery paper it came out gold!! Here's a pic of it below. They were so cool I couldn't throw out the extra one so it's still in my scripture case!! haha I wanted the whole thing to be kind of like an Olympic medals ceremony so we set up a back drop kind of similar to the real thing. I used the same logo to create a giant YW's Olympic symbol out of cardboard and form paper. I printed the flame head on the same silvery paper and attached a black handle. It turned out sweet. Here's the whole back drop. I had to have twinkle lights cause they basically rock. I wanted to have them every where but that was soooo too much work. We had medals put together for all the girls with this years theme on them. The jar next to the podium was for the torch when it came in (not a real one but a seriously cool one). Since flags are a huge part of the Olympics I thought it would be fun to have a flag ceremony with each of the the value colors as a flag. I found all this really neat fabric at Walmart already cut into the perfect size with all different kinds of patterns on it. I got two of each color and sewed them into flags. We had the girls come in after all the parents were seated carrying the flags around the tables to the old Calgary Olympic theme. The lights were off and the torch was lit. It looked so real! I wish I got pics of it but I was slacking at that moment. The girls eventually ended up at the front where there was a jar on the table for each flag. Below are the girls with their flags. We had them wear a shirt that corresponded with their flag color. A huge part of our branches Personal Progress program is focused on getting to the temple so we have certain things that the girls earn once they complete a goal that gives them something special related to the temple. Some of the things are a temple recommend holder, temple clothing bag, special temple book and decorative tiles. Things that will remind them what their goal ultimately is. Below is the display table of all the things. Sadly I neglected to get a picture of the torch lit up at the actual event so one of the missionaries gladly offered to hold it since he missed when the actual Olympic torch went through Airdrie. I looks real when the lights are off. SO COOL!!! I got the design from the sugardoodle.com lady's blog. It worked superbly! The rest of the photos are just fun ones of the girls holding their medals or their flags. Overall it was an amazing night! We had each girl go up and pass the torch to each other and give an example of a women in the gospel that exhibited their value. A member of the branch presidency talked, as well as the stake YW's president. We also listened to the song called "Believe" which was the the theme song of the Vancouver Olympics. Such an amazing inspired song! Download if you don't have it!!! I get chills every time I hear it. For dessert we had each girl bring their favorite dessert, so easy and we have a few girls that have special diets for nut allergies, etc. and they were able to bring something they could eat. What started out as a scary event turned into a super spiritual fun night for the leaders, parents and the girls!! Our YW's president, Michelle with one of the Laurals. One of our Laurals and Beehives showing off their sweet medals. Made out of wood, gold spray paint and vinyl lettering. They say, "Be strong and of good courage." One of my most favorite pics of that night! All the girls raising their value color flags to the sky. woot woot! I love the one girl that has hers straight up!! haha Way to go for the Young Women's program the church has put together! I have such a great love for it and the things it teaches our girls and for the things I learn from it myself.

We had such a fabulous New Beginnings this week. I am so thankful for everyone who helped make this night a success. I'll give you the...

I just got pictures from our New Beginnings program for our young women group. It was such a fun night! We had a Survivor theme. (My friend ...

A friend asked to create these for her… she framed them and had them hanging around the room. They also printed smaller handout size of each (4 to a page). I know she cutout the shape of the …

It's been a while since we've had a Sundae Served Saturday! This week I wanted to share with you my Mom's fantastic New Beginnings! This is where the girls coming into our churches girly youth program, Young Women, come to learn a little more about the program and begin to feel welcomed by their leaders and new friends. Most importantly the Young Women have a theme in which they strive to Live the Young Women Values. Those values are Faith, Divine Nature, Choice and Accountability, Knowledge, Good Works, Integrity and Virtue. Each value has a color to associate it. Mom found her idea HERE on Sugardoodle.com for a Seuss Themed New Beginnings. She used most of the ideas she found from there. She wanted to start the night by reading the book Oh The Places You'll Go! by Dr Seuss. But, she asked me to rewrite the book so that it would match there theme Stand in Holy Places. I was super excited to do this for her! And thus Oh The Places You'll Stand was born! THEN... the very next sunday a lady in our ward handed me a copy of Green Eggs and Ham (The Missionary Version). Hilarious! So then I had to make sure mine would be able to fit the pictures in the book so you could cut out the poem and paste it in like hers! Tada!!! It looks awesome right? The book ends up talking about Young Women Values, what each of them stand for, and a lot about the different places you will stand. It's meant to be uplifting and remind you that when you stand somewhere scary all you need to do is remember the values YOU stand for and you will be okay! I created a printable which you can get BY CLICKING HERE! You just cut it out and paste it into the book! I tried to match the font perfectly, but I am no Dr Seuss. So be sure to cut a little extra room around the letters and trim down if you need too. Awesome Sauce right? I love it! Click HERE if you didn't click the printable the first time! The font I used for the cover is HERE. It's called Doctor Soos Bold. I can't wait to show my friend on Sunday! So first my mom read the story. The gym behind them was closed off by curtains. When she finished reading they opened them so the girls could see Dr. Seuss Valueland! The truffula trees are made from pipe covers and tissue paper. She wanted pool noodles but couldn't find them at this time of the year. My brother downloaded some Seuss music which was playing in the background (Mommy was good at enlisting help!) Tables were set up around the area and each value had a colored table. Each value also had a Suess book assigned to it. Faith (White) - Horton Hears A Who Divine Nature - The Sneetches Good Works - The Kings Stilts Individual Worth - I Wish I Had Duck Feet Knowledge - I Can Read With My Eyes Wide Shut Choice and Accountability - The Lorax Integrity - Horton Hatches An Egg Virtue - I Had Trouble Getting To Solla Sollew Beforehand Mom had the girls make mini Truffula trees out of pom poms and pixi sticks as a wednesday night activity. When people came to visit their table the girls would read a little something they wrote about how the value pertained to the Dr. Suess book. Doesn't it look great! The girls also spent the activity making these awesome paper lanterns! After walking around the Seuss room the girls were all invited to another area for a surprise performance! My mom had the young men act out "If Dr. Seuss Wrote the Book of Mormon!" Click HERE for that printable. Afterwards they played a game where the girls were asked questions about values. If they had done something in the scenario they had to stand up. If they stood up they got a gum-ball of that value color. At the end she asked them which color they had the least of and then challenged them to work on that value all year. The link where she found that idea is HERE. They have great instructions. Then they all drank Pink Ink and ate cake! I can just imagine how amazing it all looked in person. I am sure my words don't do it justice. Mom said when the girls turned around for the Seuss room everyone gasped! Don't the girls look so happy! See their tiny Truffula Trees? I guess tons of them wanted to take home the giantic truffula trees! What a great reminder of the evening. What an amazing thing they all pulled off together! Makes me miss being in Young Women!

This is for Julie, because I love you! :) Sorry I wasn't the one who posted the pageant themed activity. I wish I was, it sounds like fun! * By the way, is this what you were looking for: New Beginnings: Young Women Values Pageant, skit found here. * I decided to throw a few more ideas your way, with the Pageant Theme in mind. Here are a few photos I dusted off for inspiration. Julie, I would love a few from your pageant days! :) * {insert photos of 1990s Miss Orem Pageants here} * IDEA FLOW I began by looking up the definition of pag·eant/ˈpajənt/ A public entertainment consisting of a procession of people in costumes, or an outdoor performance of a historical scene. A beauty contest. * My thoughts then turned to developing... "Pageant of Progress: a celebration of the Young Women program". celebrate the history of the young women program present through a procession of costumes and historical tidbits celebrate individual beauty and accomplishments I had to do a little research on the Young Women's program next. This was pretty fun. :) I know I used more resources than listed below, sorry I didn't document very well. * RESOURCES USED History of Young Women Achievement Programs Young Women - Then and Now, A Century of Young Women 134 Years Young! New Era November 2003 (great photographs in article - here is the PDF) * PURPOSE Celebrate the history of the Young Women Program. Encourage young women to continue working on their Personal Progress by giving them opportunities to develop a new skill, and by displaying their creations. * PROGRAM I could see the night coming together in a number of ways. I narrowed it down and chose to share this idea with you: * Welcome: ____________________ Opening Song: "Carry On" (which was written as the anthem for LDS youth) Opening Prayer: ____________________ YW Theme: ____________________ YW Historical Overview: A presentation put together by the young women. Each of them given a specific era to cover. Creating a timeline of the Young Women Organization. Or, this could be combined with a fashion show. (see idea below) (I know a number of young women who would love to put outfits together for something like this.) Musical Number: ____________________ Fashion Show: (if done separately) Bishop's Remarks: ____________________ Closing Prayer: ____________________ * FASHION SHOW IDEA Have the young women grouped into different time eras. Each young women dressed as a girl would from their assigned era. I would let them do their own research (10 hour project?). :) The MC could describe what young women might have worn during that time and a "Did you know?" - tidbits about what the young women organization was like during that time. * 1869 Fashion: pioneer dresses - you know the ones! :) * Did you know? In November of 1869, one father wanted to do something specific to help his girls. It so happened that this father was President Brigham Young. And the way he organized his own daughters soon spread throughout the Church. One evening he asked his older daughters to stay behind after family prayer. There were ten of them in their teens. He pointed out that other young ladies in the Church looked up to the Young girls as examples. He asked them if they would form the Retrenchment Organization. He asked them to meet together to study the gospel and to keep their clothing simple and attractive. 1900s Fashion: long skirts, large brimmed hats, buttoned gloves * Did you know? In 1902 the first joint opening exercises were held for young men and young women. 1910s Fashion: Long dresses, high collars, long sleeves. * Did you know? In 1915, every female over 14 was a Beehive girl until she entered Relief Society. There were no Mia Maids, Gleaners, or Laurels. At this time, the Church established its first systematic awards program for girls. First summer camp for girls was held in 1912. (100 years old this year girls!) 1920s Fashion: The flapper look, a shapeless dress. I love the hats! Hair styles were typically short and sleek. I loved the swim picture, that's the only reason it is there. :) * Did you know? In the 1920’s all young women who belonged to the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association were called Beehive girls, regardless of their age. They were arranged in groups called “swarms,” and their leaders were called Bee Keepers. The Beehive program included three ranks: Builders in the Hive, Gatherers of Honey, and Keepers of the Bees. In 1922 gold and green became the official colors of MIA and the first Gold and Green Ball was held. In 1929 they combined Young Woman's Journal and Improvement Era, to make one magazine for young men and young women. * 1930s Fashion: well matched sweaters and skirts with blouse and jacket combinations * Did you know? In 1930 the hymn "Carry On" was introduced as the anthem for LDS youth. Girls ages 12-13 did not become part of the MIA until 1934. In the 1930s, leaders gave new emphasis to music, dance, and the performing arts. They published a recreational song book, and sociable singing became popular. They sponsored ten-minute musical programs or "road shows" that were locally created and rehearsed and then presented in successive wards in each LDS stake. 1940s Fashion: *Skirts and dresses were A-line in shape (not pencil tight) and dropped down to the low knee. * Did you know? Class symbols of the beehive, rose, and sheaf of wheat are introduced in 1943. In 1944 the Big Sister program was started for young women and mothers who needed to go to work during the war years. 1950s Fashion: Poodle skirts, cashmere sweaters, sandals or loafers. * Did you know? In 1950 the Roses class was renamed Mia Maids. Also in 1950, the Beehive girls became the first two years of Young Women. The next age-group was called Mia Maids. At that time, the 16- to 18-year-olds were called Junior Gleaners. You would mark your progress by attaching felt seals to your bright blue sash. In 1959, the Junior Gleaner name was changed to Laurels. It was an exciting time to be in Mutual, because every year you got to be in your ward's road show with the young men. :) You would also probably love the Saturday night dances put on by wards and stakes. These dances were a fun opportunity to mingle with young men, enjoy good music, and taste good food. If you enjoyed playing basketball, you would have been excited about the girls' basketball teams—you could play as long as you had a female coach and followed girls' rules.  1960s Fashion: tailored suits and dresses Our parents pictured above at a high school dance in 1964 or '65. Aren't they a good lookin' couple? * Did you know? In the 1960’s, some of the requirements to earn emblems for the Beehive bandalo included: Strive to get your full nine hours beauty sleep each night this month. Make it a habit! Increase your self-confidence by acquiring a good posture (sitting, standing, and walking.) Politeness in all things is the mark of a lady. Practice at home being considerate and polite. Learn to accept directions graciously. Conscientiously try to improve. Make the dinner hour joyous by improving table manners of the entire family. Look for something beautiful every day for two months. The first For The Strength of Youth pamphlet was printed in 1965. 1970s Fashion: Bell bottom pants. Platform shoes. Polyester. (and yes, I watched Charlie's Angels) :) * Did you know? Bandelos were discontinued in the early 1970s. In 1974 the name is changed to Young Women, and the New Era begins. 1980s Fashion: Over sized shirts, leggings, bleached denim, shoulder pads, and accessories were big and gaudy. (This is Kathy, a couple years ago, dressed up for a Vanilla Ice concert at UVSC) :) * Did you know? The Values program was started in 1985. In the first Church wide Young Women activity, (on October 11, 1986) an estimated 300,000 gathered at sites around the world to release helium-filled balloons containing personal messages from the young women. I remember this! 1990s - 2000s Fashion: baby doll dresses, blue jeans/navy blazer/classic white shirt * Did you know? A new camp manual was introduced in 1993, focusing on service, spirituality, and the Young Women values. In 2002 the Young Women Personal Progress program was revised and new Young Womanhood Recognition Medallion introduced. The words "strengthen home and family" were also added to the Young Women theme in 2002. In 2008 the value Virtue was added to the Young Women Theme. Today Fashion: End with a presentation of all the young women. Each with a sash representing one of the value colors. My thought would be to let the girls dress in their own way. Celebrating their own unique beauty.(photo is of my beautiful daughters) :) * Did you know? * Over the years, the classes, requirements, and awards have dramatically changed. But the goal of learning to make the world a better place through service and self-improvement has been the same throughout the history of Young Women. * Susan W. Tanner, Young Women general president , "If young women know of God's love for them, it will influence and shape all of their thoughts, feelings, and actions. They will understand they have a mission to perform in this life. They will have confidence in their ability to make responsible, righteous decisions. They will be able to resist temptation, to flee from worldly things, to dress modestly as is becoming of a divine daughter of God."

A blog with ideas to aid us on our life's journey to perfecting ourselves and our families. Crafts, Printable Pages, LDS lesson helps and more.

These chapters are filled with new beginnings that can teach us great lessons. Consider some of the principles that can be learned from the following events: Having been converted, the sons of King…

I promised I had some great things coming for the upcoming 2012 Mutual theme and this is just the beginning! I was excited this fall when I found out what the theme for next year would be: “Arise …

Young women learn about all the Lord intends them to become By the Young Women general presidency Each member of the Young Women general presidency shares her thoughts on new beginnings in 2013 Sister Elaine S. Dalton, Young Woman general president A new year marks a new beginning — and in the Young Women we celebrate New Beginnings. Each year, parents and young women gather to learn how the Young Women lessons and activities can assist parents in helping their precious daughters become all that the Lord intended them to become. This gathering, "New Beginnings," can include an orientation to Personal Progress, activity plans for the coming year and, especially this year, the new resource "Come Follow Me: Learning Resources for Youth." This information is presented by the Laurel class and other leaders and advisers. Young women who will turn 12 in the coming year and all young women ages 12 to 18 are invited along with their parents. The new Mutual theme, "Stand ye in holy places, and be not moved" (Doctrine and Covenants 87:8) is introduced to both parents and young women using some of the resources in the "Strength of Youth" media. This wonderful resource helps support the youth in living the standards and learning how other youth around the world are incorporating the scriptural Mutual theme into their lives. These resources can also be used in lessons, family home evenings, activities and youth conferences. They coordinate with the doctrines being taught on Sunday and add a rich media element to the Teaching and Learning Resources for young women read full article here

I'm honored to be serving in my church as the Young Women's secretary! I love my calling as I get to play around with excel and word and come up with fun ideas as well