Sweet is the Work

Submitted by Marcia Van Camp 11/09/2015

For Young Women in Excellence this year, our theme was Sweet is the Work.  Here are some pictures of the decorations which I am posting so if there are others out there who want to copy any of this, please do!  I can't take credit for the any of the creativity, my main contribution was frosting cupcakes.

Here is the original blog that we were inspired by and which has all these wonderful printable items!

http://shelleybeatty.com/life/events/young-women-in-excellence-young-womens-program-lds-church-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-mormon/

Young Women in Excellence is a program we have every year for the girls in church ages 12 to 18 to celebrate all the hard work they have done.  We had talks given by girls on different values such as Integrity, Faith, Knowledge and so on. We also sang the hymn, Sweet is the Work and it was lovely.

https://www.lds.org/music/library/hymns/sweet-is-the-work?lang=eng

I love these rosettes and the individual cotton candy treats.  We had small bags so that girls and their families could take candy home with them. 

The podium was covered which looked so great especially when the girls were up there speaking.  

Here is a view of the whole scene.  We ended up using about half of the gym so that the program would be more intimate.  The table in the back was set up so that girls could display items from their projects.  I also like the chevron banner hanging above because it's so colorful.  As with many old church buildings, we cannot lift the basketball hoop, so we added some pom poms to it. 

Welcome table and programs.  I absolutely LOVE those large lollipop decorations.  It makes me want to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

 

Look at this yummy display!  I love the white chocolate fountain that has matching colors, so pretty!  We had strawberries, popcorn (yes, it comes in pink), and a yummy cherry bundt cake among other things.

For the chairs, plastic tablecloths were cut in strips so everything looked pretty but it was cheaper than tool, and you more options for colors. Since we were in the gym, the backboard was covered as well with those plastic tablecloths.

All of the Young Women values were on the wall along with pictures of each of the Young Women.

I made frosting for about 48 cupcakes and piped them and I doubled the below recipe but I ended up adding a little more shortening because it was too firm.    

Frosting (not doubled)

1 cup white shortening

1 lb. powdered sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

8 teaspoons of water

Pink Wilton Paste - I used about 1/16 of a teaspoon 

**you might need to add a little more water or shortening to get the desired consistency