The Orange Blossom Cafe

Those of you long-time readers know that I am very involved in my church. I thought that since I've neglected my poor little blog so much lately I'd fill you all in on what I've been doing instead. In my church there is a group for women of all ages called Relief Society. Right now one of my assignments in church is to help plan weekly and monthly activities that strengthen, uplift, and edify our female members. This week we celebrated the birthday of Relief Society. (Our organization is 170 years old.) Here's the invitation we gave to all the women to invite them to our birthday celebration:Since we live in Mesa, AZ and the orange blossoms are so fragrant and lovely right now, we decided to have our event outside. Here's what the walkway looked like:
The banner says Orange Blossom Cafe and is the same format as the invitation. Both the banner and the invitations were created with Photoshop. Don't you love the orange bench??? My dear friend, Jenny, from Juniper's Loft just made that charming beauty for her own entry way. It added the perfect pop of color to the walkway. Thanks, Jenny! (Sorry, folks. I don't think that one is for sale. Yet.)
(Thanks to Courtney from Orange Blossom Shop for letting me borrow the chandelier.)

As the women walked in they were greeted with homemade orange juliuses.

There were two types of centerpieces for the eight tables. One was a ruffled burlap runner with a ruffled plant/photo holder in the center. The other was wood planks with a variety of jars in varying sizes. In the jars were twigs from apricot and pecan trees and some pinwheels. (Thanks LouAnn for the pinwheels and Jessie for the amazing centerpieces!)
Recognize this? This is the same light stand that we used in the wedding. This time we strung Chinese lanterns. It was absolutely breathtaking at night! I wish night pictures turned out better... (Thanks LouAnn and Mark!!!)
The banner says Handprint on My Heart which was the theme for the evening. More on that below
And the "stage" looked like this. Obviously, I didn't get my camera out before all the women started arriving. Sorry, ladies, if you didn't want to be online! We started the evening at 6:30 when it was dusk out. The night began with a light dinner consisting of (previously-mentioned) orange juliuses, curry chicken croissant sandwiches, fresh grapes, and a citrus spinach salad.

After everyone had been served a plate and had eaten, we started the program and started serving dessert. Dessert was lemon marmalade cupcakes with a meringue topping and orange swirl ice cream. As the women ate their dessert they enjoyed a 25 minute program. The program was introduced by talking about how influential each woman has been by serving and helping others; like the song from Wicked called "For Good" says, each woman has left a "...handprint on [someone else's] heart." We then heard personal experiences from 15 of the women who talked about how another woman in our church has left a handprint on her heart. After that we had two younger women sing "For Good," and then we closed with a card that said, "You have made a handprint on my heart." We asked each woman to write to someone they normally wouldn't and tell him or her why they have made a handprint on their hearts.

All in all, it was a beautiful evening. Sorry for the long diatribe, and feel absolutely free to skip over this entire post. I personally like hearing details about events like this so I can get ideas for future activities, so that's why I shared so much about it. After I vegetate in front of the TV for another night I think I'll be ready to start back up with a regular working/posting schedule. Thanks for your patience! Check back tomorrow for some shutters and a couple new chalkboards.