Spreading Joy

Way back in August my friend, Traci and I got finagled into doing the decorating and setting up of our Stake Relief Society conference that was to be held in October.  I seriously wanted to say no and I actually tried to say no, but it didn't work out that way.  We took on the task and tried very hard to stay organized and on track so that we wouldn't turn into crazy ladies the week before the event!  We had the task of setting tables/centerpieces for 200+ people, making a little handout/party favor, and setting up the buffet tables.  The theme was "Finding Joy in the Journey".  Actually it was technically...."Wo-men are that they might have joy."  I had a really hard time with the wo-men part and we chose not to go that direction. 

Since it was going to be in Fall we chose to work with pumpkins as our centerpieces and then accent with some cool rustic looking map paper (for the journey part of the theme) and then add a printed out quote of the theme to the table.  We chose these very striking foil copper colored square plates for each place setting and accented it with a fall napkin with leaves on it that we folded into crowns and placed on the plates.

 Here we are working on making the square wooden pumpkins that we created for each centerpiece.

We had a blast using Traci's husband's worktable.  We won't tell him that we cut a little bit of the edge off.  It was kind of hard to figure out!

We made seventy five pumpkins for the centerpieces, putting three different sized pumpkins on each table.  We also made some larger wooden pumpkins for the buffet tables and the stage.  The little party favors were a little jar of jam with a butter knife attached to it.  We put a little tag on it that said, "Spread Joy".  Pretty clever...and it turned out really cute.  This event was a lot of work and I'm glad it's over.  I had a blast working with my friend.  It was a great excuse to get together for a little bit of work and laughter!