Women's Luncheon Table Decorating 2018

I've taken a few years off from going to my church's women's luncheon due to conflicts.

Mainly:  prom.

I was excited to get back to it.

This year Ellie's Young Life leader's grandmother was the speaker so she decided to host a table too.

I knew it was going to be a busy weekend because McDaniel was bringing A BUNCH of kids home with her from college.

And they were all staying at our house. 

More on that later.

So I wanted to keep my table decorations simple and/or that didn't require much shopping.

I decided on a dinosaur theme.

Why?

1) I love dinosaurs.

2) I have a lot of dinosaur home decor.

3) Dinosaurs seem to be popular right now.

When I told Ellie my theme she told me to not go crazy and keep in "Dino Chic."

But of course.

In the center is my Tyrannosaurus Rex cookie jar from Target the girls got me a few birthdays ago.

I ordered the big leaves from Amazon to use as chargers and a centerpiece.

I brought the other dinosaurs I had from home and put fake succulents in them to "Dino Chic" them up.

I alternated between driftwood napkins holders and gray napkins and galvanized metal and gold napkin holders and light beige napkins.

Those white plates came from a thrift store.

You might recognize my chia pet dinosaur I painted silver after I couldn't get a single chia seed to sprout.

I bought a bag of plastic dinosaurs on Amazon and spray painted a handful of them white for each place setting.

McDaniel got me this salt and pepper set from Target for Christmas.

Now on to Ellie's table.

She has a real eye for design and definitely knows what she likes. Most of this came from her room.

When I was 15, I had a poster of Prince on my wall. 

That's all I can remember about it's design theme.

One of the sweet college girls from my small group made Ellie a beautiful eucalyptus and white flower garland that she put around the center of her table. I'm kicking myself for not getting a picture of it!

I love that each place card said Woman of God.

I wish I'd taken more pictures the next day!

The themes stuck mainly around spring.

After this forever winter, 

I loved all the blooms and color.

There were so many women there--the biggest luncheon I've been to yet.

And the speaker was FANTASTIC!

A few Young Life leaders came and one of Ellie's friends.

Two of the leaders are in my small group so when we discovered that we all were wearing jumpsuits, I suggested the natural thing.

Take a picture doing the Charlie's Angels pose.

Except I couldn't remember exactly how the pose went.

There's a Karate chop in the pose?

I'd like to say we were praying here but we were probably comparing shoes or pedicures.

It was an awesome event.

Spa Night Party

The female Young Life leaders in our area work tirelessly pouring into the lives of our high school and middle school girls and fostering their walk with the Lord.

They do this ON TOP of going to college, 

working and trying to have a life of their own.

A group of us moms wanted to pamper these leaders for a night.

Spa Night was born.

Pinterest is chock full of ideas for a spa party at home.

Like this spa wreath.

I bought a bunch of shower scrubbies and hot glued them to a straw wreath form that I had. I printed out the Spa Party sign from my computer.

I printed out all the spa services we were providing and where they were happening and stuck it in a frame. 

I also made some lavender and peppermint foot scrubs for the girls to take home with them. I put them in small throw away containers from the grocery store.

Manicures were done at the kitchen table.

Someone brought a hand wax machine that was THE BEST. My hands were so soft after I did it.

I found this cute ribbon banner at Target and I printed out the Relax letters from Word one letter at a time and I cut them down.

I grabbed all the massage tools we had in the house and put them by the couch.

Pinterest gave me the idea to use pool floats for facials. I ordered these guys from Amazon because it was still February and none of our stores had any pool things out for sale yet. 

I bought those white containers at Dollar Tree that we used for foot soaks.

Nigel is so confused.

Marshall's was a great resource for lots of different inexpensive face and lip masks.

I also set out a great clay mask from Arbonne that we used a big make up brush to apply.

We had a vase of head bands and shower caps for the girls to grab to keep their hair out of their facials.

No facial works without cucumber slices.

Some marked down, slightly brown grocery store roses de-pedaled made for a fancy touch to the foot soaks.

I used a bath soak by Arbonne in warm water for the foot soaks.

Then I sprinkled the fancy pedals on top.

I'm so sad that I didn't get any food pictures but we had fun hand cookies, roast beef crostinis, little chicken salad sandwiches, yogurt and granolas, fruit, cupcakes and brownies.

We also served an iced coffee latte punch and non-alcoholic mimosas that we called "no"mosas.

I put 2 cups of water in a crock pot set on warm with a few drops of lavender essential oil and rolled up wash cloths for the girls to use to wipe off their faces after their facials.

One of the moms brought a few electric massagers to use on the girls.

This foot massager was crazy. It moved back and forth sideways--FAST.

I loved seeing these girls relax.

And enjoy each other.

And completely unwind.

This was such an easy party to do! I had most of the stuff already (except the pool floats and masks) and all the mom help with the food, nail painting, masks and massage made each girl feel pampered and loved.

Which was the whole goal of the night.

Monte is cooking up a fun night for the guy leaders.

And no, it will not be a spa night.

Barbie Party

Day #10

It’s hard to follow up kidnapping a friend for a surprise birthday party by putting a rubber chicken mask on their head.

So I asked Julie’s daughter for some ideas for a 51st birthday party and she casually mentioned a Barbie theme.

Done and done!

Sumita and I covered part of a wardrobe box that she had with pink plastic table cloths.

We had cut the box out in the front to resemble an actual Barbie box.

We filled a basket with tiaras, boas, headbands, bows and necklaces for a fun little photo booth.

Backing up,

the first thing Julie saw walking up to Sumita’s door was this:

It wasn’t this creepy in person.

Then she saw this once she stepped inside.

We decided that Julie needed her own Barbie doll.

She had just had some work done on some veins in her legs and had been wearing wraps.

So her Barbie had leg wraps.

Julie has cute kicky glasses.

So did her Barbie.

Julie has fun, short hair.

So did her Barbie!

(Despite my hack job.)

It’s like they are twins!

Then I went through some pictures of Julie 

and made paper dolls with them.

I printed the pictures out and glued them 

on to card stock and cut them out.

I love the tall one in the back when she dressed up as 

70s game show host Wanda Winsalot for a game night at church.

She was hilarious in that role!

And of course, I love the Chicken Head Julie paper doll.

Julie said her son planned to take this photo back
to college with him.
Can you imagine that roommate conversation?

We did lots of pink.

Sumita put red food coloring in vanilla yogurt for a fun parfait in fancy glasses.

I found all kinds of Barbie stuff at a thrift store.

I had Chocolate Cafe make gluten-free cupcakes and they put Barbie rings on them!

The Barbie box photo booth was so much fun!

Robyn, Julie’s daughter.
And the genius behind the party theme.

Serious Sumita doll.

Adorable Tenesha.

Sandra is COOL!

A scarf AND a boa to try to cover all the
bandages on my neck from my
Frankincense burn.

Jill fit right into the Barbie box.

Megan is a real life Barbie.

Hahahahaha!

Awww. There’s Sumita’s smile!

Tenesha’s daughter, Bella and Julie.
This makes me smile.

 Laurie as Surprised Barbie.

Sandra and Beth.

Barbie Beth.

Sumita’s daughter, Alyssa.

Momma and daughter love.

Love this!

I slipped some goofy redneck rotten teeth into the prop box.

Julie, Robyn and I decided to have some fun with them:

Making sure our rotten teeth are in correctly.

I laugh every time I see this.
Every. Time.

Cracks. Me. Up. 

I may have compromised more than my neck with
that Frankincense. 

Julie is one of those people that has lots of interests 

and lots of natural talents in pretty much anything she tries.

So it made TOTAL sense to make some parallels to Barbie.

I did some digging and Barbie has had a BAZILLION careers.

She was even a rap star in the 80s.

We ended the little presentation asking Julie if she’d been holding out on us.

You know, if she were the REAL and TRUE Barbie!

It matches up.

Am I right??

It was a fun day filled with the greatest friends 

who are fantastic sports to follow along 

with bossy emails from me to 

“show up and wear pink”.

No questions asked.

Barbie never had it so good.