Looking for an idea for New Beginnings or Young Women in Excellence or even Activity Days? Here’s an idea that we used for New Beginnings this year. We created a beautiful evening centered around Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s talk and book (get the ebook for free right now for Kindle!) Your Happily Ever After.

I love this talk and its message is perfect to share with young women and girls. Not only would this theme work for Young Women activities, but it would make a great Activity Days Mom and Me or Recognition activity.

I am excited to share with you the printables I made for this event including a storybook invitation, program cover, logos and photo cards. You can download them at the bottom of this article.

Our program featured talks by three of our young women as well as one by our featured speaker, a member of the Stake Presidency. He elaborated on Elder Uchtdorf’s message and even brought along his adorable young granddaughter who was dressed as a princess.

Our color scheme was red and black. For handouts we presented each girl with a single red rose and a chalkboard-painted heart to put in their rooms.

A talented brother in our stake cut the hearts out of thick wood and then we YW leaders painted them with black chalkboard paint. As an additional touch, we drilled a hole in the top of each heart big enough to hold a piece of chalk and then glued on a red bow. On the back, we used Mod Podge to apply a photo card with this year’s Mutual Theme. (The photo cards can be downloaded below.) We used chalk to write each girl’s name on a heart.

We decorated with Valentine’s Day heart-themed decorations that each leader brought from home as well as with red rose petals, crystal diamonds and the chalkboard hearts.

Since we use a “tree” made out of branches stuck in a pot at all of our events, this time we hung our tree with wooden chalkboard hearts cut from thinner wood and threaded with red ribbon at the top. Written in chalk on each heart was one of the Young Women values.

For refreshments, one of our fabulous leaders made heart-shaped brownies (cut out with a cookie cutter) and frosted them with red frosting and another leader made heart-shaped sugar cookies with pink frosting. We also served red punch.

And now for the printables! Please remember all my files are for noncommercial personal or Church use only. Please do not share them in any way–send your friends here to download their own copies. You will need to unzip the downloads before you can access the files. Enjoy!

Storybook Invitation

To go along with the fairy-tale theme, I created a mini storybook invitation featuring front and back covers, title page, dedication page, story page and invitation information page. I printed the cover on white cardstock and then printed the inside pages back-to-back on copy paper. After folding both the cover and the inside-page insert in half, I stapled them together to form a booklet the size of a quarter page.

To make creating these invitations easy for you, I’ve made editable and saveable PDF files for you! All you need to do is open the PDF file you want to use (one has this year’s mutual theme on the back cover, one is left blank so you can use it for other years) in Adobe Reader, enter your chosen text in the text boxes, save, print, cut and assemble. I’ve also included JPEG files of each page for you to customize in your own graphic-design or photo-editing software, if desired.

Download my Your Happily Ever After Storybook Invitation here.

Do not share my files in any way. They are for noncommercial personal or Church use only.

You will need to unzip the download before you can access the files.

Logos

I created a custom 2013 Mutual Theme logo (Stand in Holy Places) and a Your Happily Ever After logo for this activity. So you can customize your own projects, I’ve saved these logos in PNG format for you to use. Add them to your designs using most word-processing, photo-editing or graphic design software.

Download my Your Happily Ever After Logos here.

Do not share my files in any way. They are for noncommercial personal or Church use only.

You will need to unzip the download before you can access the files.

Program Cover

Enhance your activity with my quick-and-easy coordinating program cover. I’ve done all the hard stuff for you–simply open up the program cover file in Adobe Reader, add your information, save and print. If you want to further customize the program cover, I’ve included the JPEG files so you can add your own touches in your software.

Download my Your Happily Ever After Storybook Program Cover here.

Do not share my files in any way. They are for noncommercial personal or Church use only.

You will need to unzip the download before you can access the files.

Photo Cards

We used Mod Podge to adhere one of these  3×4-inch photo cards to the back of our chalkboard hearts. You can do the same or use one on a different craft project or as a handout. Simply upload the desired photo card file (I’ve included both the 2013 Mutual Theme as well as “Your Happily Ever After” cards) to your favorite online photo printer (like Costco) and have it printed as a 4×6-inch photo. Then, cut the photo print in half to create two photo cards for an easy and inexpensive handout or craft-project addition.

Download my Your Happily Ever After Storybook Photo Cards here.

Do not share my files in any way. They are for noncommercial personal or Church use only.

You will need to unzip the download before you can access the files.

Enjoy!