Young Women's in Excellence...Mystery/Sherlock Holmes/Steampunk Theme

This year, our Young Women wanted to have a

Sherlock Holmes/steampunk theme for Young Women's in Excellence.

One of the counselors in the Presidency came up with a fabulous idea!

First, the girls need to fill out the following questionnaire.

Click here for the questionnaire

Second, the information from their questionnaire needs to be

written in a creative way for the script.

Here is the script for our girls.

Click here for the script

Both are Word documents and can be edited for your ward.

We started with a walkway down the center of the room.

This is the Personal Progress path, that is discussed in the script.

To the left of the screen, you can see brown sheets.

We covered two rollaway chalkboards with the sheets.

You will find out why later in the post.

A member of our ward made the white screen for us.

He made a simple wooden frame, and pinned a white sheet tightly on it.

One of the Presidency made the London skyline out of cardboard

and then spray painted it black.

I wish I would have taken a close up of Big Ben,

she even put in a miniature clock!

We setup tables on both sides of the room with value colored table cloths.

These were the display tables for the girls Personal Progress Projects.

Each table was numbered and the girls were able to pick their table.

These are the tables in the other side of the room.

We have two wards that combine to do YW in Excellence.

Here is our refreshment table.

We had cupcakes made with mustache toppers
and cookies frosted like mustaches.

We started the night with the usual song, prayer, and theme.

The Beehives did a musical number.

Then we began with the "skit".

We asked a member of our ward that loves to act, to read the script aloud.

We put a spotlight behind the white screen and

had the girls stand close to the screen so their silhouette was visible.

One member of the Presidency was behind the screen with the girls

directing them on and off of the stage.

Now you can see why we covered the rollaway chalkboards.

We did not want anyone to know who was behind the screen.

They were given this document with their program.

They had to try and guess the girl behind the screen.

Here are the pictures of the girls.

I added every girls picture since they brought their

individual personalities to the skit

      

  

 

This Young Women stuffed her shirt with pillows and ate a slice of pizza.

    This Young Woman put her hair in a ponytail at her chin.  

 

 

When we were done with the script, we gave the parents 5 minutes

to look at the tables and try to figure out which

table belonged to which young woman.

After that was done, the Mia Maids sang a musical number.

We played a video that one of the Presidency made

that documented the last year of activities.

The Laurels ended the program with their musical number.

Then the Bishops got up and handed out their awards.

We closed with a prayer and ate refreshments.

We had a former ward member setup a photo booth for

the parents and girls to get pictures taken.

We haven't received any back yet, but when we do, I will post a few.

This was by far my favorite Young Women's in Excellence

that I have been a part of.

The girls really enjoyed it and I believe that the parents did to.

Let me know if you any questions.

Family Proclamation Craft

My Mia Maids decided that they wanted to

make a Family Proclamation Craft.

We ended up making them last night and they turned out awesome!

Here is what the final product looks like:

 Supplies needed:

- A piece of 5x7x1 wood

- Minwax Wood Finish in Ebony #2718 (bought at Home Depot)

- Family Proclamation printout

Click here for one green square

Click here for 4 green squares on 11x17 paper

Click here for 4 blue squares on 11x17 paper

- ModPodge

- Sponge brushes

- Blow dryer

- Sandpaper (optional)

- Brown stamp ink (optional)

- Ribbon (optional)

I forgot to take pictures of the step by step process.

If you have questions. please let me know!

1. I found a piece of wood that was 5 1/2" by 59".

I needed 8 squares, so my husband cut them 7 1/4" long.

2. Stain every side of the wood and let dry for a few days.

3. Put a light coat of ModPodge onto the block.

Carefully put printout onto the wood and smooth it out with your fingers.

Make sure that you get all of the bubbles out of the back of the paper.

4. Let dry for a few mintues.

5. Put a good coat of ModPodge over the top of the block.

You want to cover the paper and wood with ModPodge.

Make sure the brush strokes are in the same direction.

Here is a picture of the block up to that step:

 6. Turn blow dryer on low and dry ModPodge for 2-4 minutes.

Since we were short on time, I brought a blow dryer to dry it faster.

7. Add another 1-2 coats, blow drying after each coat.

8. Take sandpaper and sand around edges to antique the wood (optional).

9. Stamp the edges of the paper with brown ink and smudge with a

paper towel or your fingers to antique (optional).

10. Tie ribbon around one of the wood edges to decorate (optional).

You can see in the pictures that I posted that we did everything up to step 8.

There are many ways that you could decorate it.

I like the simplicity of the block.

Here are my Mia Maids with their blocks they made.

It was a fun and easy craft.

And now the girls have their own personal Proclamation for their rooms.

Also, this activity fulfilled a Divine Nature Personalized Value Experience.

"Using a handicraft you have learned, make something for your current or future home."

Let me know if you have any questions.

2014 YW Calendar

At the end of last year, my Mia Maids asked for calendars

to help them organize their lives.

I looked online to try and find a cute 2014 calendar.

I could not find anything that I really liked that was free.

I decided to create one myself!

I am a month late, but I got it done.

I did not make a January, only February - December 2014.

If you read my previous post,

we had a Personal Progress Goal Setting Activity.

I based the colors of each month, on the value

that the girls will be focusing on for that month.

Here is what each individual month looks like.

If you want to download the entire calendar,

click here and it will take you to the .zip file.

I also created a cover for the calendar,

with the 2014 mutual theme.

I am going to print it off and have it bound for all the girls.

 I created two different covers;

1. For your YW Presidency and

2. Just for a spiritual cover.

Click the picture, then click save image as...,

save it to your computer and you can print it off.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Personal Progress Conference Handout

I found this cute idea on Pinterest for a YW Conference Handout.

You can click here for the link to the original idea.

I used all of the same information from the original idea,

but I made a cute handout to go along with it.

You can either click the picture, and right click on it to "save as..."

or you can click here for the file.

We are going to attach this handout to a bag of cheetos.

Hopefully it will help inspire the girls to get some personal progress started.

All of them are pretty easy too.

Let me know if you have any questions or if I misspelled something.

Honesty

Last Sunday I taught the lesson,

Why is it Important to be Honest?

Here is the handout that I made for this lesson.

This quote came from a priesthood session.

I felt that it applied to the young woman as well as the men.

So I modified it to fit my lesson.

Click here for the file to print off 4 to a page.

LDS Bleached Shirts

It's been going around Pinterest like wildfire!

Taking a bleach pen to a plain t-shirt and

you have a new fantastic shirt to wear.

Last month we had an activity planning meeting with all

of the Young Women in both wards.

They wanted to do Bleached Shirts.

I was put in charge of the activity and started doing research

on what works and what doesn't.

I was surprised to find that no one had done an LDS themed bleached shirt.

I was hoping to get an easy out for this activity.

No such luck!

So I put together this tutorial in the hopes that it will help someone.

Without further adu, here is how I made my shirts.

Supplies:

T-shirt (100% cotton, if there is polyester in it, it will not bleach as well)

Bleach pen (I got mine at the grocery store for $2.57)

Cardboard (to go in between your shirt)

An idea of what you want to put on your shirt (see below)

Chalk (optional: if you want to draw out your idea first)

First, put the piece of cardboard in between the layers of your shirt.

Make sure that the cardboard is covering the entire area

that you want to bleach.

Otherwise, the bleach will run through to the back of your shirt.

Second, take your chalk or your stencil and get your design ready.

I found a template of the Salt Lake City Temple online

and used that (see below for template).

I printed it off on freezer paper, then used an exacto knife,

and cut it out around the edges, so I had the border of the temple.

Then I ironed it on to the shirt, so it would stay put.

I was hoping that if I ironed on the stencil, the spires would show up.

I used my blunt piece of chalk to write out the words on the shirt.

I would recommend a sharpened piece of white chalk, I didn't have a sharpener that would fit chalk in it.

Then I went over the temple and the words with the bleach pen.

If you look at the temple, you can see that I didn't try and

stay nice and neat around the outside.

I was hoping that the bleach would only penetrate the shirt and

not soak through the freezer paper.

I free handed where the windows go and didn't end up following my chalk,

I thought my chalk markings were off.

I let the shirt sit for 10 minutes and it didn't

look like it had done enough bleaching.

So I let it sit for another 10 minutes.

Carefully remove the stencil and the cardboard,

without letting any of the bleach touch anything!

Then I rinsed the bleach off with cold water.

When you rinse it, you can tell where the bleach is.

It ends up being white gunk that you are wiping off.

Check to make sure that you have all of the white gunk off,

then ring out the shirt.

Here is what it looked like.

I let this shirt sit, while I did my shirt.

I found this idea online by doing a Google search

for "LDS Young Women Image."

I just did it freehand.

I like how it turned out, but I would have done it differently

if I thought about it more.

This shirt, I only let sit for 10 minutes.

You can see around the BE that the bleach was starting to bleed

and I didn't want it to get too far.

 Once it was rinsed, I grabbed the purple shirt and threw both of them

into a cold, short wash with some vinegar and detergent.

Once that was done, into the dryer they went.

 Here is how they turned out.

Sorry there isn't a picture of me in my shirt.

I'm 18 weeks pregnant and am in the stage where I feel fat and not pregnant. :(

 This is the best picture I could get of my little princess in her shirt.

She will be able to wear it for a few years, which I love!

Here is what I learned:

- You don't need to use a lot of the bleach to get it to lighten your shirt.

But that is all dependent on the material your shirt is made of.

I put a small amount of bleach on, then used the tip to spread the bleach, it worked perfectly.

- You want to let your shirt sit for 10-25 minutes, once you are done bleaching.

I decided to set my alarm in ten minute increments so I could keep an eye on it.

- I had my husband help me get the cardboard out of the shirt.

I put my hands in the neck hole and he grabbed the cardboard.

That way I could put it in the sink nicely so the fabric didn't fold and the bleach didn't get everywhere.

Ideas for LDS designs:

Like I mentioned earlier, I did a Google search for "LDS Young Women Images."

I found 19 images that I loved!

I have put them into a PDF file for you to download.

Click here for the Bleach Shirt Document.

The temple stencil is page 4 of that document.

I think that about covers it.

I feel like I'm forgetting something...I will update if I remember.

Let me know if you have any questions.

I would love to see pictures if you try an LDS design!