Lookie

Last night I went to our ward's Young Women in Excellence program(a once a year evening our church has to welcome the new girls turning 12 and entering the youth program). I watched each of the girls bring up their Personal Progress books, all dog eared, stuffed with papers and notes, and looking like there is no way it will make it until the girl turns 18. In a few weeks they are supposed to get an insert to put in those little books to go with the new value of Virtue. In addition, each Personal Progress book comes with a small journal that the girls are supposed to record their thoughts and feelings in.

Enter inspiration, my love of fabrics, and my strong desire to avoid housework of any kind.

I whipped this little packet up in about an hour, start to finish. And I have no doubt that the next one will come together even faster. It isn't perfect, but the concept works. I have a few things to tweak, but they will be easy enough to fix.

Here is the other side of the packet -- personalized, of course. It is called PERSONAL Progress.

As you unroll it there is space for your journal. I couldn't find mine (because I am the most awesomely organized secretary EVER) so I used my True to the Faith booklet (AWESOME, btw) instead.

This is what it looks like unrolled all the way. There is room for the Personal Progress book, For the Strength of the Youth book, and the Journal. And when their Virtue addition comes, it will fit in there too! There is also room for a pen and a pencil.

I don't want to over promise and under perform, so let's just say I PLAN on doing a tutorial for this. I think that it would be a great gift to give to the YW in your ward, and then present to each girl as she turns 12 and enters the program. Since I am in the Stake YW Program (we oversee seven different congregations of YW programs) I don't think I will be making 85 of these. But I plan to make them for the other members of the presidency. They will be my test packets, and probably the ones I use to make the tutorial. What do you think? Is there anything you think would be beneficial to add? Something that aethetically doesn't work? Is this something you think the girls would even USE?

**UPDATE**

When I was younger, we had a family joke that we were the B___r Also-Rans. We were ALWAYS a day late and a dollar short. If there was a contest, we took second. If we went on vacation, something was usually closed. We just laugh about it. Well, the curse has struck again.

Check out what I found on Sugardoodle.net:

Even the PEN holder is in the same place. There are differences -- mine has interfacing so it's a bit more sturdy. And the closures are different. I just made a second one without the bias tape and a loop and button closure. I thought it would be easier than using the bias tape, but it took about the same amount of time. This second one is also a little longer. I like the way it wraps around more and there is space for a small notebook or to put handouts in. I think I will still do a tutorial, since the one on sugardoodle is more than a little confusing. Most of you who sew probably don't need the tutorial, but I think just having the dimentions would be helpful. Here is the other one I made: