Crafty Update

Top: Peace, Bottom: Negotiation

I had a little break from work this week so I thought I'd get a head start on doing my holiday cards. Can you believe it? I actually worked on my holiday cards BEFORE Thanksgiving this year! I'm kind of stunned myself.

It was a little rough going at first (the fox and the bunny had some trust issues) but I finally got predator and prey to sit down together and work out their problems. As I suspected, it mostly had to do with hunger on the fox's part, and not-wanting-to-be-eaten on the bunny's part. The problem was solved with marshmallows. Ladies and gentlemen, Fox and Bunny wish you "Peace & Joy All Year Round."

I used the Gocco machine to screenprint them with red and silver ink. I'll be sending the cards out to friends and family, but the few leftovers will likely make it into my Etsy shop, so keep an eye out for them if you want one!

In other crafting and Etsy shop related news.... Several months ago I pledged my May through September shop proceeds to help elderly Ethiopians who have been affected by HIV and AIDS. The result is a nice $400 check, earmarked to help elders, for the Missions to the World AIDS Care and Treatment Project. Thanks so much for your help!

The year isn't over yet, so I'm committing my October through December proceeds to help Aid to Artisans. They're an awesome organization that supports handmade traditions by connecting artisans in the developing world to markets in the developed world. If you need to do some holiday shopping and want to help a good cause in the process, come by the shop... I'll be updating it over the next month with new items... Here are some of the crafty things I've stitched/printed up so far.


Cloudy Coin Purses: Make it rain money! The coin purses are stitched with silver thread for extra optimism, and each comes with two handmade felt pins, one for sunny weather and one for thunder-n-lightnin' weather.


Alejandro el Legarto the Pencil Case: Alejandro is 3/4 friendly green lizard, 1/4 vicious alligator, and 100% hungry pencil case. He and purple Sally Salamander have a penchant for cookies. They each come with a hand-stitched felt cookie pin. Nom nom nom....


Ornaments: I'm almost done using up my previously ginormous craft supply stash, but I still have a fat bag of felt scraps. I think most of it will go towards making holiday ornaments. Not sure what the result will be (it mostly has to do with the color and size of the scraps) but for starters I have some summery oranges and leaves to hang on the Christmas tree....


Holiday cards: Now's as good a time as any to put some holiday cards in the shop... I dug through my storage and came up with some cards from as far back as 2005. Holiday Safety Tips and Everything You Want, both shown above, are greeting card / booklets, and there is only one set each. Also up for sale are some Gocco screen printed cards: Peace on Earth and Joy. They are in limited supply, so if you want a set, snatch it up!

DEAR SANTA:
Oooh, I want the L Letterpress Kit!
There's a giveaway over on i-DIY -- enter a comment to win!

LINK DUMP:
Connectivity
Satellites in South Korea :: why Lee Si-kap owns more satellite dishes than any other South Korean
Blackboards in Africa :: analog blogging in Liberia
Internet Usage Around the World :: global map of who's using the internet and how much
Open your ears!
Music from a Tree :: tree as instrument, by Diego Stocco
Soundtransit :: book a ticket and travel with your ears
Smithsonian Folkways :: listening is an act of love
Sound Recordings by Tony Schwartz :: listen in on the past, through the recordings of an old pro
Imagination & Stories
Marco Polo Sightseeing :: paintings of Marco Polo as a modern-day traveler by Nora Sturges (full gallery here)
Significant Objects :: a project to test the value of a well-told story... using Ebay

Craftivism

It's been awhile since I last wrote about my crafting projects. There's a good reason for that. It's because I haven't been crafting very much. So while I've been very good with my New Year's Resolution to not buy any new crafting supplies (I haven't caved in once, not even in Shanghai!), regrettably I haven't made much of a dent in the existing stores of fabric.

However, I do want to proudly, though belatedly, report that from January through February, I raised $513 from my craft sales for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation! A bunch of Sir Hamilton iPhone Cozies, hungry Alejandro el Legarto Pencil Cases, Cloudy Coin Purses, and those mischievous Change Purses, Bob and Dexter -- they all went to loving homes in return for some generous donations. Type I diabetes unfortunately makes a lot more money for certain healthcare corporations as a chronic disease than it would if it were cured. But it's good to know there are dedicated researchers out there working hard on a solution. I hope that the JDRF-funded work, coupled with Obama's recent executive order lifting the ban on federal funding for stem cell research, will lead to a cure this decade.

I've been a workaholic for the past few months, but now with some major design projects completed, and others in production, I finally have some free time again to play! This month I'll be restocking my Etsy shop and sewing up some new things. This is a great time to announce the cause that I'll be donating my Etsy proceeds to AND post about a trip to Ethiopia. From May through September, my Etsy proceeds (100% not including the cost of shipping) will benefit elderly in Ethiopia who are at a disadvantage because of having HIV/AIDS or being part of a family affected by HIV/AIDS.

And regarding the Ethiopia trip, no it wasn't I who went to Ethiopia -- it was my sister! All of my siblings are a constant inspiration to me, but Maria still surprised me when she suddenly announced last summer that she would be jetting off to Addis Ababa to temporarily serve with the Missions To The World AIDS Care and Treatment project. She's a doctor by day and a full-time mom, so the fact that she was taking her vacation time to work with HIV/AIDS patients in Ethiopia really made me feel proud and humbled.


Photos courtesy of Maria Lee

Maria found out about Missions to the World medical missions through her church. The logistics of her trip -- involving doctors and support staff from across America and suitcases full of medical supplies -- were handled by Bev and Andy, two missionaries in Addis Ababa. For several months preceding the trip, Maria and her fellow medical teammates raised funds for travel and gathered supplies. Then in February, for two weeks with the help of interpreters, the team set up a medical clinic at the ministry to treat and counsel HIV/AIDS patients.

You can read more about the amazing trip that my sister took on her church's blog HERE.

Photos courtesy of Maria Lee

Although the needs of HIV/AIDS affected children in Africa can't be diminished, there are comparatively very few funds allocated to the support of similarly affected elders. Lack of access to basic healthcare means that life expectancy in Ethiopia is only 41 years. Since my sister (both my sisters, actually) devotes her professional life to treating elderly patients, she noticed the compounded lack of care options for those elders in Ethiopia who lost their social and family networks because of HIV/AIDS.

In my sisters' words: "After my two weeks there, I spoke to the staff there and told them that my heart went out to the elders there who lost families. Elders there rely on families to take care of them but many have lost children and grandchildren to HIV/AIDS. I call them orphaned elders. I don't know what others call them. The current program is for HIV/AIDS patients and the immediate family members of that patient. Current monies coming in are not budgeted for needy elders but I think it is a big need."

"On the last Friday I was there, one of my elder patients shared her story about how her family outcast her because they couldn't accept her converting from the Ethiopian orthodox religion to Muslim religion. So she is without family also. She cried before me about how she had to sell all her household belongings just to buy food. She fears she will soon need to resort to begging. She reported significant weight loss. I "adopted" her and gave my "downpayment" to the staff to help her buy some food for the month of March. I plan to send some more. But there are many more who need this assistance as well. Would you be interested in being a part of my new pet project?" Of course, Maria!

So, there you have it. Proceeds from my Etsy shop sales from May through September will be going to the Missions to the World Medical Missions, earmarked to help HIV/AIDS affected elderly in Addis Ababa. Go buy stuff here!

Holidays

We're just one month into 2009, but already the holidays have just been sneaking up on me too fast. Lunar New Year came and went with barely any comment from me, even though its MY year, the year of the Ox! Sigh... I once had this ambition to design holiday-specific items for my Etsy shop -- you know, so as to do some seasonal marketing -- but my tendency to procrastinate has foiled my best laid plans... So, needless to say, with only 2 weeks until February 14, there is NO new Valentine's Day card design for sale in my shop... Umm, but I still have ONE left from last year if anyone wants to snatch that one up....

Not to worry, there are more holidays afoot. Did you know that in S. Korea, Valentine's Day is for girls to give gifts to boys, but there's a separate holiday for boys to show their affection to girls? Like Japan, S. Korea celebrates White Day on March 14th. So I still have time to design a White Day card. Or perhaps I can procrastinate a little longer and design something for Black Day. That's on April 14, and it's a uniquely Korean holiday for single people to get together and commiserate over bowls of jjajangmyeon (noodles with black bean sauce).


But back to Valentine's Day. Oh, ok, I admit I'm not really one of those super romantic people that gets excited over lacy paper hearts and flying cherubs wielding arrows... but, this is for a good cause. For the next 2 weeks, Fred Flare will be selling an assortment of unique and handmade valentines created by Fred Flare designers and customers. 100% of the sales proceeds is going to benefit the Elder Craftsmen, a non-profit organization that enriches the lives of lonely senior citizens through crafts. This group just sounds awesome to me because it was on my grandma's lap that I first learned the joy and reward of making things by hand, and it's something I never had the chance to thank her for. Sooo, go check it out and pay $4 to get a blind assortment of valentine art via snail mail to share with your sweetie(s)! Remember to enter "love" as the coupon code to get free shipping. Read more about the project here and browse the Flickr group pool here.


This year, I donated a few of my "Love, Found" cards to Fred Flare's Snail Mail Valentine's for Charity effort. It's one of the featured cards on their product page!

And here are some of my favorites from other contributors.

The paper cut-out kitty and bunny are from Marin in Omaha, Nebraska.

And the corny-cute salad and dressing saying "Lettuce be together" is from Claudia in Evanston, Illinois.

New Year's Resolution

Happy New Year!

Most years, I don't even bother with resolutions. I just figured I'd break them anyway. My reasoning was that the decision to designate years with numbers, to break them down into months, to have the yearly number change on a certain date -- it's all rather arbitrary. And I admit a slight superstition that I might jinx my general trend of good luck by paying too much attention to this arbitrary date.

This year a resolution popped into my head when I was least expecting it. I was cleaning my closet and finding things at the back that I had forgotten about. The resolution seemed like a good one, so I decided to go with it.


There just so happens to be a TON of crafting supplies in the closet now. Mostly they consist of fabric and notions that seemed like a great idea at the time but which I couldn't find a use for later. This is the year that I'm going to get rid of them! So, my new year's resolution is to NOT BUY ANOTHER CRAFTING ITEM until this vast stash 'o stuff is depleted. I will make one exception for replacement sewing machine needles since I seem to... break them... often.

The year is nearly gone. I'm excited to get started. I kind of panicked a bit while we were in Bangkok, and bought an entirely unnecessary stash of fabric and zippers, but I'm fine now. When my Etsy shop re-opens in January, I will start filling it with the creations that are produced from the various odds and ends in my closet. Over time, I think some interesting things may happen. For example, after I run out of zippers, I'll have to figure out how to sew button holes. And after I run out of buttons I may have to use found objects for button closures. Then there's the part when I get to the bottom of the bin, the ugly fabric. Hmm...


There's a second part to my new year's resolution. All the proceeds from my Etsy shop this year (excluding shipping and handling costs) will go to charity. I haven't decided yet on the roster of charities to give to yet, but I'm starting out by giving the earnings from the first 2 months sales to one that's close to my heart, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the largest charitable group funding the search for a cure for Type 1 diabetes. I hope it will happen in our lifetime.

We came back from Bangkok on Monday, after 4 days of walking, exploring, snacking and shopping. Some posts about all that are coming soon. Tonight we're back on a plane for another long weekend trip, to the Northern Marianas islands of Saipan and Tinian. Yay!