YW Christmas Gifts

I volunteered to be in charge of the YW's Christmas gifts from the Presidency this year.  We had a vague idea of what we wanted to do, but it was difficult to translate that into a clear picture and then to actually execute it.  I thought surely someone had done something similar in some other ward in the world, so I Googled...and found NOTHING.  I spent way too much time trying to save time and not re-create any wheels.  I read other YW leader's blogs.  I looked up ideas on all those YW IDEA websites.  I looked on ETSY.  And I found nothing that was even close to what I had pictured in my head.  So, just in case some other YW leader is in this same boat next year, I thought I'd save them some time and post what we came up with.

One Sunday, earlier in the month, we passed around sheets of paper to each of the YW with ALL the other YW's names on it.  We asked them to write a couple of things they loved about each person next to their name on the list.  We got back some really sincere, beautiful thoughts. 

 
We wanted the girls to be able to keep the things the other girls had said about them, but we weren't quite sure how to put it together into something worth keeping.  After many hours on the internet and much time in craft stores, here is what we ended up with...

I have been a scrapbooker for years, but inactive for the last...um...5 or 6?  (yikes!!)  It was so much fun to cut and paste again.  I loved personalizing each one to the girls' color preferences and personalities.  

They had so much personal meaning for each girl because they were things their friends had said about them...not their leaders or their moms.  One of my sweet girls cried when she read what her friends said about her.  That made all the Googling and all the trips to Hobby Lobby completely worth it.