Ladies Day

About a month ago, the ladies of the church I am a member of got together to host a ladies day. This congregation hosts a ladies day for the area every 18 months. The theme this year was "Blessed Be The Tie" and we took that and ran with a western theme for the decorations. We had a fantastic day and I think everyone was uplifted and got something out of the lessons that were brought to us. There were two things the speaker said that really stood out to me. 

"It's okay to disagree. It's not okay to be disagreeable."

Sometimes I need to be reminded of this. I can get my feelings hurt when people don't like my ideas. I know that is silly. I don't always have the best ideas...sometimes my ideas are pretty lame-o, but it is how I am. When that happens, there are times I just want to shoot down every idea because if they aren't going to like my idea...I'm not going to like theirs. Ridiculous and disagreeable is what that is. I need to work on that.

"It's easier to bring someone down than to lift someone up."

This is so true. Trying to make someone feel better about something is soooo hard! It's hard to find the right words or to say something negative in a loving and kind way. I need to be more aware of how I word things and how I speak to others so that I am not guilty of bringing them down.

So, back to the decorations!

The western theme was so fun! I kind of put myself in charge of this. I didn't mean for it to happen, but I was the one that suggested it and then I bought the things to decorate with so it just landed in my lap and my leadership side took it and ran.

We had a lot of burlap left over from when we used it as sand for our Treasure Hunting VBS last year so that is where the Western theme idea came from. Might as well use what we have! I used the burlap to line galvanized buckets and to make banners. I wanted the burlap banners to look very rustic so I just painted the lettering on the separate sections. I used burlap ribbon to make the bows.

I had pinned several ideas of things to do with bandana's and made this tablecloth from one of those ideas. While this did work...it didn't work well. If you make a tablecloth or quilt from bandana's, you need to square them up first or they will be wrinkly. We also used sunflowers around the building to give the theme an extra, needed pop of color.

We served a lunch after the ladies day so we also decorated in the multi-purpose room.

We originally wanted to put flowers on the tables for centerpieces, but that ended up being a little more costly than we wanted it to be. Again, Pinterest came through for me and gave me the idea of filling the buckets with our eating utensils.

Our bulletin board in the multi is 12 feet long so it can be a challenge to work with. I do think it turned out pretty cute. I cut the letters out with my Cricut machine.

I thought the jute with clothespinned lettering turned out cute for the theme.

We had just enough bandanas left over to do a swag over our kitchen pass-through.

I loved all of the cheery sunflowers.

This is our beautiful speaker, Nancy. I have known her all of my life! She stayed with us Friday night and I really enjoyed visiting with her and catching up!

Originally, the ladies who have children from our congregation weren't going to bring them, but then Chloe Jo decided she really wanted to go so I took her. Then it ended up that we all brought our daughters so it worked out perfectly. They all did so good and were well behaved the whole day!

Chloe Jo was so excited when she saw Brianna come in. I had told her Brianna wouldn't be there.

My girlfriends, Kristin and Rebecca, were able to come. These are the girls I like to craft with and we like to get together for playdates since our children are all around the same age.

These are some of the younger ladies from our congregation, Antha, Tia and my sister, Chelley. Love them!

I am so thankful that our little congregation still works so hard to have events and try to spread God's Word. It's easy to say "we are too small for" this and that, but our congregation definitely does not have that mentality and it is a blessing.