southern fried gal

Wow – has it really been a week since I last posted? I helped with another women’s ministry event and spent the week preparing for that. I also am getting back in the swing of things with my business – having a great month so far! BBC turns 5 tomorrow (sniff, sniff) and we have been preparing for that.

We went out of town this weekend mainly because I had a SLAH party back in my home town. After a couple of weeks of purging items from the home, we stopped over at my best friend’s consignment store and dropped quite a few items there.

We went to lunch with mom and the gang to celebrate BBC’s birthday. If you are ever in Ft. Smith, AR and want some good ol‘ southern cooking, you MUST stop into Calico County just off Rogers Avenue.

They start you off with baskets of cinnamon rolls – yummm! I’ve never eaten anything there that wasn’t tasty – I prefer Genne Lee’s Vegetable plate.

I spent a good portion of my time working on the decor for our Women’s Titus 2 (mentoring) Kickoff. This is a small ministry group and our budget was very small. I was asked to help with hospitality which included decor and coordinating food. My partner in this is Trish and she is a real live artist! Our goal was to have cheery and welcoming decor AND spend little if any money. Mission accomplished! I think between the two of us we spent well under $20 and then shopped from the women’s ministry closet. Each ministry team member brought a sweet or salty finger food.

Because this is a mentoring ministry, the phrase “Growing Women In Christ” came to mind. So we decided to go with a garden inspired theme. It was fun to see all the different decor items from many other events (past and present) come together for our kickoff. I brought a few items from my SLAH stash to supplement. Check it out…

The towel bar is one of my favorite SLAH products. You can have lots of fun with it in the kitchen by changing out tea towels with each month. OR you can make a cute sign with leftover vellum, scrapbook paper, and ribbon like this one here. Using a similar concept, you can also bring special attention to a cherished photo! The Jubilation Cross is another of my SLAH products. The fabrics were from a recent event. We found the little birds perched on one shelf – there were just enough for the few tables we were setting up! There were a handful of little straw hats, too!

The flower arrangements for our centerpieces were also from a previous event – why reinvent the wheel? We found the garden plaques on the back top shelf. We grabbed a few other garden inspired items from the Dollar Tree like pink gardening gloves and seed packets to complete the look.

And this is how our food table turned out. Of course I brought plenty of SLAH serving pieces. It is so much fun to have all this stuff! We found the bicycle planter in the closet, too. So I stuck a bowl in the basket filled with spinach and artichoke dip. I just got this at Kroger for the sake of time. If I had budgeted my time better I would have brought my favorite recipe. Then I filled a wire basked with veggie chips and added a scooper. I had a lot of fun styling my food! I also took my chocolate chip cheeseball – always a big hit!

Isn’t this centerpiece stunning? Trish took a little here and a little there and crafted this in about 10 minutes flat. It was even more impressive in person.

OK – gotta go. Got lots of fun posts planned for the week including my 100th post and a giveaway! Have a blessed week! Please continue to pray for Harper, Brayden, and all the other NICU babies! Glory to God for all the positive reports!