“Arise & Shine Forth” – Inspired by the movie “Tangled”

New Beginnings Talk - [pdf] [Word]

The idea for the whole thing came to me after watching the movie “Tangled” with my daughter and was solidified when I went to the Church website and saw the picture of the floating lanterns on 2012 Theme Page. (You should re-watch the movie with a gospel perspective in mind).  We had the girls themselves do most of the artsy stuff at our Wednesday night activities – so it wasn’t much work on our part – love that! We were even able to pass off a couple of Value Experiences in the process! (Individual Worth #5 – the skit covers this and most of Knowledge #2 – the girls learned how to bake and make party decorations).  I’ve included files and pictures and will try to explain how we planned the whole thing . . .

Program Outline (see file) – This is merely an example of how we tailored our evening – there was a lot to cram in, but you all can feel free to do whatever your little hearts desire! 

2012 Theme Tie-In Speech (see file) – I’m sure everyone will do a much better job than myself, but for what it’s worth, here’s the speech I gave to tie it all together. Feel free to take it or leave it. 

Invitations – We had several different options available to us. The first idea, I got here.  These ladies are seriously talented and creative and I just LOVE their invite! The second awesome idea came from my sister. The idea that we ended up using in the end came from the amazingly creative mind of our 2nd Counselor.  Once we printed the invites, we cut circles out of a matching scrapbook paper, stuck it to the center of the sun with raised foam sticker things & then added glitter glue accents here and there on the sun & raised circle cut out. They girls had a blast and they were adorable!

Sun Logo Lanterns (see file) – I printed these on some 8.5 x 11 regular weight parchment paper but you can just use plain white paper if you like or lightly colored paper. We printed 2 for each lantern and glued the edge of one onto the other so the patterns lined up. Once the glue was dry we circled the papers around so the other edges met and taped them so they formed a tube. We placed them on the walkway into the church and down the hallway leading to the room where we planned to hold New Beginnings. Then we put a battery-powered candle in each to “light” the way.

Pennant Banners (see file) – My husband created the file for me and I printed these on 8.5x11 paper with a color printer, used glue sticks to glue them onto cardstock, cut them out and punched holes at the top corners. Then I used 3 small strips of yellow toole and 1 length of yellow ribbon to tie them together. It makes a sort of poof-ball in between each one that looks totally cute! You can make them as long or short as you like.

Butcher Paper Mural (see picture) – As a backdrop for our skit, I used craft paints to paint the night and lantern scene that Rapunzel paints in her room in the movie – it sounds WAY harder than it actually is. If you can draw triangles, circles & squares and color within the lines then you can do this! My sister used it as decoration in the hallway leading to the room. There are lots of possibilities and you can make it whatever size you like! All you need are paints and a length of butcher paper.

10-12 Minute “Tangled” Skit (Word) (pdf) – In order to explain the tie-in to the 2012 Theme “Arise & Shine Forth” I summarized the movie in a small skit for those in the audience that aren’t familiar with it. The great thing about this is that all you need is a Narrator to read. No memorizing lines, no weeks of practice, just girls in make-do costumes acting out whatever the Narrator is reading at the moment. We put it together in one Wednesday night! Just go big or go home – so to speak – the more the girls ham it up and get into their parts the better!

Song: “I See The Light” from the movie “Tangled”.  I bought the music online here but if you don’t remember what it sounds like you can check it out here.

Revised Song Words (Word) (pdf) – The words fit pretty nicely with the theme to begin with, but I altered them to better fit our gospel activity. My sister help review/refine it and this is what we ended up with.

Chinese Wish Lanterns (see picture) – This was what I had originally planned for the end of our evening, but we weren’t able to do it here in California because things are too dry and we didn’t want to have the Young Women set San Jose on fire – that would be bad! However, for those of you in wet and/or snow covered lands (such as my sister in Utah and my mom in Idaho who are doing this program too) there shouldn’t be any issues. The first step is to check with your local city and make sure it is legal to send these off – don’t get the church in trouble…just get approval. Secondly, ask your bishop if it’s okay – you may have to send them off somewhere other than the church parking lot. And finally, go GREEN! This website sells the lanterns at a reasonable price and they are 100% biodegradable.  That way we avoid littering. The lanterns basically work like a hot air balloons so the fuel pack either burns out or gets so high in the atmosphere that the lack of oxygen snuff out the flame. Either way, wherever they land, they decompose. Be sure to check out the proper way to light them and send them off – there are instructional videos on You Tube such as this one.  The plan was to have the girls and their parents write a testimony statements/sentences with Crayola washable markers on the paper part of the lantern. Then you go outside and literally send your light off into the world – is there a more awesome way to end the evening!?? In my head it’s an amazingly magical and spiritual moment, but I’ll have to wait to hear about it from my mom and sister – lol. Good luck to those of you that get to actually do it!"

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ADDITIONAL SOURCE: Here is one more source for paper lanterns.