Good-bye Party-There's No Place Like Home

I am lucky enough to work with a group of ladies at church, whose job is to put on a monthly activity for the rest of the ladies at church.  Since we have 7 ladies moving this summer, we decided to do a good-bye dinner.  Because everything is better w/ a theme we chose Wizard of Oz.

Here's what a group of amazing women can do with a guest list of 40 women and a budget of $100.

Did you know that after Dorothy went back to Kansas, the Tin Man opened up a potato bar?  

I failed to get a picture of the tin-foil wrapped baked-potatoes and the "toronado" (sour cream).  I also made a "Great and Wonderful Salad (aka spinach salad) that also didn't get photographed.  I dug through the toolbox to find spare bolts and screws to make the little signs.    We also had melted witch punch made my Amber at Mule and Nag.  (We normally call it Yoda Soda at my house full of boys).

It is a tragedy of epic proportions that I didn't snap another pick of the dessert table fully loaded with the full rainbow of 500 cupcakes.  We had orange creamsicle, key lime, pina colada, PB chocolate, and red velvet -all amazing.

I did manage to snap a pic of the "table legs" I stole from here. The wicked witch is apparently having some water retention issues.

 I made them from an old pair of shoes I sprayed w/ glitter paint and old soccer socks that I stuffed w/ grocery bags and striped white.

I don't know if these turned out exactly as I envisioned, but we here's our table decor spotlighting HEART, BRAINS, and COURAGE.

I did about a 2 minute devotional on the things I've learned from the Wizard of Oz:

It’s better to be a good witch than a bad witch

Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable

 There’s no place like home (our eternal home).

Do not confuse courage with wisdom.

Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don’t they?

That all it takes is one little girl to destroy wickedness.

You’ve always had the power to find your way home.

And finally,

A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.

Life is a journey, and just like in the movie, it is only possible with the help of good friends as they share their brains, courage, and mostly their hearts with us. 

Ahead of time, we assigned someone to spotlight each lady that was moving and how she had been an example of courage, heart, and brains.  There may have been a few tears.

We gave them each a twix bar covered w/ the wrappers that I made: (pdf here)

To finish off the night 2 woman sang the song "For Good" from Wicked and everyone got to leave w/ a bookmark with the lyrics.

It was an OZ-SOME night!