Sunday, April 15, 2012

SLC Temple Cookies


I'm teaching the lesson today in young women's. I'm going to bring these SLC Temple cookies as a treat. I made them out of my favorite gingerbread cookie recipe, white icing and black frosting.

I rolled out the cookie dough and cut a basic shape of the SLC temple before baking. The black frosting got a little runny on some of the cookies. Next time I plan to use my edible markers instead. I think royal icing would work better too, instead of the powdered sugar + water combination I used to decorate them.



The message attached says "a true love story never ends." You can find the message here.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Inspirational Candle Holder

In my ward, the young women's presidency likes to give birthday gifts that are related to the young women's theme for the year. I got to come up with the idea for birthday gifts this year for the young women. I thought it would be fun to make a frosted glass candle holder with the words "let your light shine." This quote is actually a variation on what the theme is this year.

Steps for making the candle holder
1.) Print the wording in the font you like onto a sticker sheet (or trace the lettering from your computer screen onto your sticker paper)
2.) Cut the letters out with an exacto knife
3.) Place the stickers on the candle holder (getting them straight can be tricky)
4.) Spray several coats of frosted glass on the candle holder over the stickers and all around the outside
5.) Once the frosted glass is dry, remove the stickers.

Sound Scavenger Hunt

We had a sound scavenger hunt last Wednesday for mutual that turned out to be really fun. We split the young women into two groups. We gave them a list of 50 sounds to record and the group who recorded the most within an hour got a prize. We ended up using cell phones with audio recorders in them for the game.

Many of the sound ideas came from this website. I created a few of my own. The funniest one was the sound of someone doing "the worm" dance. The young women's president was kind enough to do "the worm" for one group, lol. We tried to keep the scavenger hunt around the church and just outside.

The purple flower hair clips were the winning prize. I made them out of a old shirt I had, hot glue, a metal bead and a bobby pin. Here is a tutorial on how to make them. I used shear material and tried to push the fabric up while gluing it in a way that would make the flowers look more poofy and less flat. I learned that it is better to use material that does not fray easily around the edges.



I brought chocolate dipped strawberries and orange cupcakes with orange glaze for refreshments.

For the strawberries -
I melted milk and white chocolate melts separately in the microwave. Each took about 1 min to melt. After dipping them and letting them set, I put the remaining chocolate into bags, cut a very small hole and drizzled contrasting color lines of chocolate over each.


For the cupcakes -
The orange cupcake recipe came from the allrecipes website. The orange glaze recipe came from an old addition of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. The glaze is made of powdered sugar, butter, orange juice, orange zest and orange food coloring (few drops of red & many yellow drops of food coloring mixed together.) I dipped the cupcakes in the glaze and once they dried, I zigzagged white chocolate over them.

Chocolate Scripture Handouts

I got the idea for making these mini scriptures out of Hersey candy bars online. Aren't they cute? There is a tutorial on the blog "Raising a Kumquat" if you'd like to check it out. I handed these treats out during my young women's lesson about a month ago.  I decided to include the young women's theme this year for the scripture on the front (D&C 115:5.)

Tips
1.) Office stores will often sell individual pieces of colored paper
2.) Office stores may have a cutting tool onsite you can use for free
3.) I bought the candy bars in bulk
4.) I think rounder topped candy bars look better (mine were a little too flat).
5.) I also think the gold wrapped candy bars look better.