Annual Retreat

The annual women's retreat was Friday night, and I hosted.  About ~20 sisters come and we had a grand time ... someone later described us as a group of misfit toys - not your typical group of stalwarts that come to relief society gatherings - and while I missed the regulars, I'm so glad we had the group we did ... we all had so much fun together!

For our fourth year (my first to plan) we mixed it up a bit - more out of necessity, and thankfully, this year, as it always seems to, it met it's purpose.  We opted to not have the overnight-er to make the planning easier and to lessen the burden on others (so few were able to stay the night, it hardly seemed worth the time).  We started late ... after date night and/or kids were in bed ... had a chocolate fountain! (yum!!  Thanks Becky!) ... and door prizes and goodie bags - cause that's what Oprah would do.  We sat and ate our chocolate and talked.  No workshops, no speakers, no singing, just talking. 

For the door prizes, we asked each sister who came, to give a little of themselves to be a door prize for another sister.  The donation should be one of time or talent, and take no more than an 1 hour of time, in order to try and make things equal.  I loved watching their faces light up when they drew out their prize as they left for the night.  So fun.  I'm making Valarie a jar of bath salts.  

I really enjoyed the challenge of making the goodie bags.  It was time intensive, but the challenge kept me busy and creative for a solid month!  I wanted the sisters to take home something fun, but also functional.  Since we didn't have any workshops or classes during our evening together, the goodie bag not only served as a fun take home, it was essentially, a workshop in a bag.  Everything was handmade with materials that were inexpensive and easy to come by (the goal was to keep the contents to less than $1 and I did it, easily!), and something a novice could make.  I included instructions (email me if you want a copy!), so they could duplicate any of the projects to gift to neighbors, friends, sisters, or visiting teachee's later on.  

Each bag contained ... 

    * Bath Salt Pouches for the shower or bath - yellow and lavender wash cloths, top left of picture
    * Clothes Pins* - middle right of picture
    * Washer Pendant necklaces - bottom middle of picture
    * Petite Notepad - lower left corner of picture
    * Lemon Sugar Hand Scrub (not pictured, but were packaged in size 2 baby food jars)

I LOVE the versatility of a white lunch sack!  Everything got bundled up in the white lunch sack that I punched using a MS craft punch I found on clearance.  So pretty, so casually elegant.  GR made fun of me for spending 30 minutes punching 40 white lunch sacks.  "No one will care", he said.  Ha, ha, and ha!  While it didn't matter one way or the other if the bags were punched, it was one of the first things they noticed, and I'm grateful to those who noticed that little detail and said something about it.

The crazy thing, I hardly made a dent in my paper scrap stash.  I really thought making 40 of these paper projects would make a bigger dent in my supply.


* There are a hundred different ways to do this ... just ask google.  I used matte decoupage glue and found that cutting my paper strips to the size of the clothes pin worked best - 3/8" x 3-1/8."  They are clipped to a plain 3x5 card and had I had the cash, I'd have put them in a small baggie, but I didn't so the hung free.