Little Flowers Girls' Club :: Wreath IV Crafting Pages

I finished updating all my original Little Flowers Girls' Club Notebook Pages and creating pages for the new Wreath IV! This week I'm spending all my free time crafting the new sample pages...

The Wreath IV Crafting Pages are finally completed and available for download over at Behold Publications! They are only $3.00 per wreath. (If purchased I will receive a 25% commission. Thank you!) I also requested that they be available to download for FREE in the Registered Club's Site.  The updated versions of Wreaths I, II and III will be available soon!   

Note: The Wreath IV Crafting Pages feature the lovely saint illustrations by Michelle Mahnke, matching the coloring pages found in the Wreath IV Member's Guide. 

Creating this fun supplement for the Little Flowers Girls' Club® has been a labor of love, originally for my own girls, and I hope the girls in your club enjoy crafting the pages too! 

Visit Behold Publications to purchase the Wreath IV Crafting Pages

Little Flowers Bingo: Flowers & Gems {and other Printables!}

I thought it would be fun to play Bingo at Our Little Flowers Mother-Daughter Tea Party this year.  Instead of using the All Saints Bingo Cards I made last year for the All Saints Party we hosted, I made Bingo Cards using all the Flowers and Gems from the four Wreaths of Little Flowers.

Little Flowers Bingo: Flowers & Gems {Printable Cards}

and Printable Flower & Gem Bingo Call Cards

* I started with the intent of making 30 printable cards, but stopped at 15 since that was all that I needed for our party.  If anyone is interested in more than 15, let me know and I will try and complete the set.  

The final two games we played during our Tea Party were a A-Z Quest of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from That Resource Site, and a Wreath IV Saints & Gifts Word Search, which I made real quick the night before the party.   Note to self:  Make sure to proof read the Word Search next time!  I had everyone looking for two "Catherine's" and the generator I used decided I only needed to use it once!  Oops! I've removed the second from the word list in the download.   :)

A-Z Quest of the Blessed Virgin Mary (no longer available)

Wreath IV Saints & Gifts Word Search

Tea Party Games :: A Cupcake Jigsaw Puzzle Race!

You all know that my family loves puzzles, right?   So of course I had to find a way to tie them into Our Little Flowers Girl's Club Mother-Daughter Tea Party this year!  ;)  When a friend of mine mentioned some small "Cupcake" games & puzzles she had seen at Barnes & Noble they sounded perfect!

I ended up purchasing a 4 pack of 60 Piece Puzzles and two 100 piece puzzles, since I couldn't decide whether to break the group into 3-4 teams or 2 teams, for a "Cupcake Puzzle Race."  When I gave the girls the option, they all wanted to go with Mothers versus Daughters!  I gave them first pick of the two 100 piece puzzles and they choose the white cupcake with the pink flower on top.

*Only a couple of the puzzles are currently available on Barnes & Noble online, and Amazon doesn't seem to have these particular cupcake puzzles either,  but they do have a few other options. I especially love these little Nature Puzzles.  

I put the moms at our train coffee table and set a card table up for the girls.   With a "Ready, Set, Go!" we started the race!  It was very close, but us moms did end up winning!

It was SO. MUCH. FUN!!  I'll definitely be keeping "Puzzle Races" in mind for future parties! 

Our Little Flowers Girls' Club Mother-Daughter Tea Party

This past Saturday I hosted our annual Little Flowers Girls' Club Mother-Daughter Tea Party following our completion of Wreath IV.  I'll admit that, after an extra busy back-to-school week, I was pretty overwhelmed after Mass Friday morning just thinking about everything that still needed to be done, but it all came together beautifully!



One of my dear friends invited my boys over for the afternoon, so that my husband and I could pick up flowers and all the other last minute things I needed from town.  She also loaned me some gloves and a pretty hat to wear, along with her tub of extra hats and gloves for anyone else that wasn't able to find some for the party.   Another friend went home and polished her beautiful silver tea set for us to borrow, since I wasn't able to find one at any of the local thrift stores or even the department stores!

Thankfully I had also saved all the decorations from last year's Tea Themed Birthday Party, and I even was able to use that pretty pink Birthday Banner since we scheduled our tea for September 8th, the feast of the Nativity of Mary!

As always, I assigned each of the Little Flowers a menu item to bring for our Three-Course Tea.  In between each course I planned games for all the Mothers & Daughters to play, while we gave the servers (a couple of the girls' older sisters) time to refill the tiered platters.  I'll post about all of this year's party games later...  In the meantime here are some pictures from the Tea!

~ Drinks ~

Red Rose Tea served with Cream and Sugar

Lemon & Strawberry Infused Ice Water

~ The First Course ~

Grapes ~ Strawberries ~ Scones

Served with Whipped Cream and Lemon Curd

~ The Second Course ~

Three Cheese Mini Quiche ~ Spinach Mini Quiche

Deviled Eggs

Cucumber Sandwiches with Cream Cheese  &Strawberries 
Cucumber Sandwiches with Goat Cheese & Bacon

Chicken Salad Sandwiches

~ The Third Course ~

Fruit Tarts

Strawberries & Cream Puff Pastries

Gluten Free Brownies

~ Tea Time Candies ~ 

Pillow Mints &
Wreath IV Gemstones 
(aka Jolly Ranchers - and my creative husband gets the credit for this idea!)


~ Party Favors ~

"Tea Bags" filled with Marian Stickers, Rose Covered Pencils, Candies, and a Rose Shaped Candle

Pretzel Rods dipped in White Chocolate and Pink Sprinkles

As much as I am ready for a break, I think I am really going to miss leading Little Flowers this coming year!   My girls will be moving on to the Little Women Hospitality Program, though we do plan to continue having an annual Mother-Daughter Tea Party!  I need to try and enjoy the break, since it won't be long before our little Rose is ready to learn more about the various Virtues and work her way through the four Wreaths of Little Flowers!

St. Therese the Little Flower, Pray for us! 

Little Flowers Girls' Club ~ The Gift of Fear of the Lord

A couple weeks ago we had our 7th Little Flowers Girls' Club meeting for Wreath IV, which completed all four wreaths of the Little Flowers program.  It has been a busy four years and the girls have grown so much, both physically and spiritually!

Anyhow, about this last meeting, which focused on the Gift of Fear of the Lord and St. Maria Goretti... Well, for the first time, I was not prepared!   I put off getting ready until late the night before, when I started putting together my notebook page. I baked cupcakes in the morning, but the baby was so fussy I wasn't able to get much else done.   Thankfully I was able to print coloring pages and the craft printouts while holding him, and the lap book supplies were waiting in a file from the beginning of the year when I printed them all out.

Twenty minutes before the meeting I still needed to put together a sample notebook page, and decorate the cupcakes!  Aahhh!!  It didn't happen.   I figured, after 4 years of making notebook pages, the girls really didn't need a sample page - they know what to do, so I started on the cupcakes... More on that below!

Rose wanted to know where her Sash and Lap Book were... In a few years, Rose, it will be your turn!  

I still can't believe that we have completed all four years!  It has been such a great experience for my girls.   I've really enjoyed leading our group and am really sad to see it come to an end but, honestly, I am looking forward to a break.   It's been a lot of work, but worth every minute!   {and just think how much easier it is going to be, in a few years when it is time for me to start a Little Flowers Girls' Club for Rose! I always wished I had something like my plans to use as inspiration and notebook pages all ready to just print!  lol}

~ Coloring Pages ~

Coloring Page Options:

St. Maria Goretti from Catholic Artworks Faith Keepers CD

St. Maria Goretti Coloring Book

Coloring Page linked in our Saintly Summer Fun :: St. Maria Goretti

~ Wreath IV Lap Book ~

I had the girls all come an hour early to this meeting, so we could spend time finishing their Lap Books.  They all turned out lovely, and will make such nice keepsakes from the year! 

Here is an overview of what was completed:

• Review last month's gift and add Mini Books that were completed at home
• Add Definition and Motto for the Gift of Fear of the Lord
• Add the correct Jewel to the Treasure Box
• Complete the Saint Profile*
• Complete the Convert Profile*
• Assemble and complete the Catholic/Historic Pilgrimages Pull Out Booklet (or black & white cover option)

Additional Resources:

St. Maria Goretti Coloring Book

Maria Goretti DVD

Movie Suggestion from Member's Guide:

Chariots of Fire

~ Notebook Pages ~

For the notebook pages, I used the motto for Fear of the Lord, a traditional prayer to St. Maria Goretti, an image of St. Maria Goretti, a definition on the gift of Fear of the Lord from My Catholic Faith, along with a short prayer for Fear of the Lord, with an invocation to St. Maria Goretti.

You can download my document here.

Here are all the girls' completed notebook pages:

~ Craft ~

Since this meeting focuses on St. Maria Goretti and the gift of Fear of the Lord, we made Spiritual Bouquet Cards.  Each of the girls took these home to complete (offer prayers, etc) over the next month, and will give them to each of their Mothers at our Mother/Daughter Tea on September 8th.   

Supplies:

• Spiritual Bouquet Cards by Alice Cantrell printed on white card stock
• Scissors and Hole Punch
• Ribbon in various colors (yellow, pink, green, lavender)

I ended up reading the article on "What is a Spiritual Bouquet?" to the girls, from our latest edition of St. Mary's Messenger.  What perfect timing!

~ Snack Time ~

Saintly Symbols Cupcakes :: St. Maria Goretti

Chocolate Cupcakes (baked in silver liners), sprinkled with powdered sugar, and topped with mini lilies made with mini marshmallows, mini yellow M&M's, and a slice of a green gumdrop

Originally I had planned to make the Flames of Forgiveness Cupcakes that I had come up with last summer for our Saintly Summer Fun with friends.  However, when I went to get out the white candy melts for the candy and found that I didn't have any - just every other color, which doesn't really work for white lilies representing purity... Oops!   I searched my cupboard to see what else I could decorate cupcakes with for St. Maria Goretti, and came up with a few green gumdrops, a partial bag of mini marshmallows, and a bag of mini M&M's.   I skipped making frosting (not enough time), sprinkled the cupcakes with powdered sugar, and homemade mini lilies.  

To make the lilies I flattened a mini marshmallow with a roller, pinched the two sides of one end together, placing a mini yellow M&M inside and a slice of green gumdrop for the stem/leave.  

St. Maria Goretti and St. Therese must have been helping me out... I thought they surprisingly turned out really pretty, despite my lack of time and organization!  They are very simple, but aren't they cute? 

~ Group Photo ~ 

Grant me the Gift of Fear of the Lord that I may bear my cross with You and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation.

St. Maria Goretti, pray for us!