Young Women New Beginnings Nautical Theme

Here are a some decor & refreshment ideas for Young Women's.
This nautical theme was used for a New Beginning's Night. 

This year's youth 2015 theme,
'Oh ye that Embark in the Service of God'
incorporates a nautical idea,
so I thought these photos could provide an idea or two.

There are a lot of great paintings of Christ by the Sea.

Donut Life Preservers

Orange Slice Boats in Blue Jello

For this night,

The Young Women, their parents, and all in attendance sat in the same room together.

We highlighted each new young women coming into beehives for the new year.

The young women seem to like it when we do a slideshow/video

highlighting the new incoming beehives.

(Sometimes a yw can prepare the slideshow for a personal progress project.)

All the young women and the leaders sang a song together.

We had practiced the song about 2-3 weeks before for a few min.

each week on Sundays.

(Sometimes it takes effort to learn a new song,

but I think for some yw; music and learning the words to a song,

 can increase their testimonies in a way that only music can do.)

To prepare for this night we also gave the yw 7 envelopes,

numbered 1-7, for them to open each day the week leading up

to our New Beginnings Evening.

(You can choose to make envelopes for the 11 yr old girls or not.)

Each envelope had a scripture, a quote, or a picture, about Christ in it.

We wanted to give the yw a daily reminder to think about Jesus Christ.

Then that night we had a beehive, mia maid, and a laurel

share one of their favorite things from the envelopes.

Envelope idea from 71toes blog.

(Preparing the envelopes took longer than planned,

if you do the envelope idea, keep it very simple)

Personal Progress

My daughter, Lindy, is in the 7th grade.

One of her classes this year required her to do some

service hours in her community.

We were able to do some work at our local

Ronald McDonald House

doing some cleaning, cooking a meal, and baking.

Lindy arranged to do it with some of her friends,

because they all had the same class requirement.

We were able to include this service in her young women's personal progress too.

After feeling inspired in several ways,

I have started doing the personal progress program too.

It has changed a lot since I was in young women's.

When I was serving in young women's in my last ward,

the girls responded better, when I was engaged in the program with them.

I feel the same way about encouraging my own daughter to complete it.

She can me sign off, when I complete a project,

and I can report to her when I finish a task.

Wish me luck.

Sister Dalton said when I make dinner for the family,

my husband can sign me off too!

Mending

Every 3-5 yrs. I tackle the mending pile.  

I actually like doing it. It makes me feel good.

I like relearning how to use my sewing machine,

how to put in the bobbin,

what stitches to use on different fabrics, etc.

I'm years behind on the pile, so now the clothes are for Brandon and Sadie.

Half the clothes I'm repairing are probably out of style,

or my kids will say, "Mom I don't like those anymore."

Even Brandon has an opinion about what he will or won't wear.

I don't even care, though.

I still like the sense of accomplishment of fixing something, sew I sew!

I've been listening to this as I sew.

I love Sister Dalton.

Yw in Excellence - Owl Stand in Holy Places

I serve in our young women's program in our church at this time.

I work with the Mia Maids, the 14-15 yr old girls.

In the fall, we prepared our YW in Excellence program to showcase

the girls work with Personal Progress.

We gave the night a theme:

Owl Stand in Holy Places

We met all together with the parents and yw

to talk about personal progress.

Then we broke the group into 2 groups.

The first group went into our yw room

to hear a message from our Bishop.

The second group went into a room to make an owl craft

to remind them to do their personal progress.

The craft was a little wooden owl painted before hand,

with a clothespin glued to the back.

The girls glued on different patterns of

scrapbook paper, eyes, and a beak to make the owl craft that night.

The yw can place their current personal progress goal

on the clothespin as a reminder to them.

Afterwards each group switched places.

Then, we all met back up in the gym for refreshments,

and to view the yw's personal progress table display.