An Evening in Excellence Tea Party: Alice in Wonderland

Our Laurels were in charge of coming up with a theme this year. They chose Alice in Wonderland—so I went on the search for a way to tie it into personal progress and found this quote by President Monson:

Let us not find ourselves as indecisive as Alice. You will remember that she comes to a crossroads with two paths before her, each stretching onward but in opposite directions. She is confronted by the Cheshire cat, of whom Alice asks, "Which path shall I follow"
The cat answers, “That depends where you want to go. If you do not know where you want to go, it doesn’t matter which path you take.”⁷Unlike Alice, we all know where we want to go, and it does matter which way we go, for by choosing our path, we choose our destination.

So there we had it, personal progress helps us choose the right path! Consequently this is the topic one of our speakers used—and we also sent it out on the invitations.

We decorated with hearts, books, and teacups hung from the ceiling to make them look like they were "falling down the rabbit hole." And one of my Laurels did the flower center pieces. She purchased white roses and actually "painted the roses red" by brushing red craft paint on them.

Also signs and arrows were posted around the room pointing in all directions. (We should have had some that listed the values, oh well.)

A second speaker used a quote from the Doorknob character above.

Food was all purchased from Costco: Muffins cut in half, Madelines, Aussie bites, Crackers and cheese, and fruit drink. We borrowed the tea pots from members of the relief society who were glad to lend them to us.

The girls had a great time! One of them told me it was her favorite Young Women in Excellence so far.

I can't share the invitation graphics with you, as I purchased them from Dollar Photo Club, a stock website. But at least this can give you an idea to do your own. However, I'm including a link to PDF sheets for the decorations.

Mountain Man Surprise Birthday Party

A girl I know accomplished an amazing feat—she put on a surprise themed Mountain Man party for her husband in her home! (I'm not talking about me.) She used cash and was able to hide the decorations and evidence of food preparations from him. Isn't that amazing!?

She borrowed a few animals for the walls, found animal figurines at the secondhand store, and purchased cheap plaid to create a fun backdrop for photos. I'm withholding some photos here (okay, I'll show one at the end)—but you can imagine some of the pictures we got after most of the group left.

Around the room you could find mountain men photos like this. She just searched the internet for the images.

Of course prizes HAD to be deer and moose droppings (peanut chocolate clusters).

She served cornbread in a skillet and soda in old fashioned bottles.

Chili was on the menu, with some trail mix and berries.

I hope you consider throwing a party like this. It was a total hit. 

Okay, okay…I'll show a little teaser of the photoshoot. I begged my hubby to put on my costume vest. This is what he did, and then I couldn't help it, I later added Dr. Pepper to the image. There are about a thousand great captions for that photo….