Olympic Young Women

Every year the Young Women organization at church puts on a little program called New Beginnings. It highlights the girls who have earned awards, introduces the girls who have turned 12 and are new to Young Women, and also explains any changes to the program. Parents are invited so they can help us encourage the girls to set and accomplish their goals. So, this year we chose a winter Olympic theme. Budget: $65.00 Below is the invitation. I love that the Young Women logo is a torch. Perfect coincidence!

The invitation was enclosed in these colorful packets. Each of the eight rings represents one of the eight values the Young Women program is based around. (Values, meaning qualities we want them to develop, like faith, choice and accountability, integrity and so on...each value is also associated with a specific color.)

I really wanted to fill the room too. But we had to do it cheaply. So we decided to fill the ceiling with snowflake garlands. The girls helped with the cutting, whew! Behind the podium we taped up Olympic rings out of poster board, and in front, a fun red carpet! (LOVED the carpet. The girls had fun walking on it when they presented their parts.) We also wanted Olympic flags flags with the values on them for the girls to carry down the carpet. They were a lot of work, but we'll be able to use them in the future—and they turned out great!

We had fun with the refreshments too. I made snowflakes out of royal frosting and poked them into cupcakes that our secretary feverishly baked.

And check this out...one of the counselors made this fantastic cupcake stand. Fun huh?

I really liked this project because it came off looking very clean and simple, and yet it didn't look homemade and wasn't too sparse. Good job team! Thank you for all your help! Oh, and Adam gets a gold medal for putting up with my mess. I worked on this the same time I've been doing cake decorating. Every room in the house has had some part of some project in it. Adam never once got frustrated. First place! Top notch! Good form! (I never know if you guys like reading the "how to"...I don't want to bore you :) If anybody wants more details on this project...just let me know and I'll add to this post.)