Little Lion

A friend of ours asked me to make a lion hat for her little one's lion themed birthday. It was fun to make and a pain to make at the same time, but she really liked it, and he is absolutely ADORABLE in it, so it was worth it.

Love this little man!! Can't believe he is one already!!

Smile!

Smile, because Jesus loves you!

And I'm smiling because this order is done! :)

My Little Pumpkin Munchkin!

I just finished a pumpkin hat for an order! And I'm very grateful to my little pumpkin munchkin for modeling it for me! :)

Is he not the cutest!?! Love him!

The pattern I based it off of can be found here @ nothing's creative anymore. (I never follow any pattern exactly, and the fact I followed this one as close as I did without making major alterations is a huge compliment! ;)) 

It was very easy to make (not saying it was super quick, but it didn't take forever!), and very easy to adjust the pattern to the right size.

Happy October!

Finished Friday - Starfish and a Lilypad - and a Prayer Request

If you would like to join me in this Finished Friday quest to get rid of all the half finished projects we all have... please blog about your project(s) you have finished the past week on Friday's, and come back here and leave a comment with your blog link. If this is successful, in the future I might set up a linky list you can join. Projects do not have to be projects you procrastinated on, they can be anything, sewing/crocheting/knitting or any other fiber art, and they need to be FINISHED! :)

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Compared to all I got done last week, this week's Finished Friday is a little pathetic, but it's better than nothing, right?

This week I made several more of these Starfish....

And one Starfish in a different color....

I used Sugar'n'Cream self striping cotton... not too happy with how it striped out, but it'll take forever to get it so it's perfect! :)

And this Lilypad!

I had made this lilypad dishcloth quite awhile ago, but finished it up to the last 5 stitches for some reason, then it ripped out some more being stored. When I found it looking for something else, I pulled it out and finished it so I would have something that I've been procrastinating on for Finished Friday. :)

You can buy the blue, green, and white starfish, and the lilypad here and here if you would like, and 100% of the sale will go to help Lilly find a family!

I have also listed many more items on our blog, and are listing many more daily, so go check it out with the new dropdown menu (that I spent hours on) under "SHOP" over at our blog "Handiwork for Lilly". :)

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Also can I ask you to pray for this sweet princess???

Her name is Selah, and she has been in a terrible accident and nearly drowned. She is fighting for her life, and really NEEDS PRAYERS!!! You can read more and read updates over at my other blog.

Finished Friday - A Bag, a Skirt, Dishcloths, a Frog, a Bluebird, a Bag, and a Starfish

If you would like to join me in this Finished Friday quest to get rid of all the half finished projects we all have... please blog about your project(s) you have finished the past week on Friday's, and come back here and leave a comment with your blog link. If this is successful, in the future I might set up a linky list you can join. Projects do not have to be projects you procrastinated on, they can be anything, sewing/crocheting/knitting or any other fiber art, and they need to be FINISHED! :)

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This post is everything that I got done for Fair after my last Finished Friday! :) So in other words, you've seen all these pictures, except the last one.

And my newest project came as an inspiration from the newest "craze" in the Reece's Rainbow orphan advocating community - A starfish dishcloth. In rainbow colors. The Rainbow Starfish Dishcloth. My only brilliant idea of the century. ;)

I've kept it a secret from all but one person outside my family, until the big reveal... which happened today over at Handiwork for Lilly, where the first starfish went up for sale. These are a specialty item, only for a limited time, so go get yours today (more being listed soon!).

If you haven't heard the story of the starfish, here is is -

A young girl was walking along a beach upon which thousands of starfish had been washed up during a terrible storm. When she came to each starfish, she would pick it up, and throw it back into the ocean. People watched her with amusement.

She had been doing this for some time when a man approached her and said, "Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can't save all these starfish. You can't begin to make a difference!"

The girl seemed crushed, suddenly deflated. But after a few moments, she bent down, picked up another starfish, and hurled it as far as she could into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied,

"Well, I made a difference to that one!"

The old man looked at the girl inquisitively and thought about what she had done and said. Inspired, he joined the little girl in throwing starfish back into the sea. Soon others joined, and all the starfish were saved.

The same goes in the world of orphan advocating. There are 147 million orphans. It's impossible for one person to save them all, but we can all make a different to one. And little by little it will add up!

And buying a dishcloth (or any other item) from my other blog - a starfish or not, will make a difference to a little starfish, that little starfish being Miss Lilly, who is still waiting for a forever family to make a difference for her.

Craft Sale Today!

Today we had a craft sale which was part of a fundraiser for a local family adopting from Haiti. They are adopting a sweet little girl named Naika:

Isn't she just darling??

She won't be able to come home for awhile, but I encourage you to go check out her family's blog!

After a really busy day yesterday (that included a lot more drama than I would have preferred), we went to set up last night, and stayed up really late (or shall I say early?) trying to get projects done. By we, I mean Rachel, my "business partner", who also happens to by my best friend, and I. This morning we got up at an hour no sane person would choose to get up at if they had a choice (and I'm not sane, so I don't know how that works...), and got ready and headed out!

Here's our table before it started.

Those french boards??? Ya, we are selling 1-2 per craft sale, so at this rate, we'll have them all gone in 3 years. :)

Potholders in the bottom right were made by my 9yo sister Anna

Tutus. :) Oh and those lightsaber looking things... another post coming about those. :)

And of course, I didn't get pictures after before we packed everything up. I seriously think I have only remembered to do it at the beginning and end for one craft sale, ever! Oh well, there wasn't too much gone that you could visibly see.

The morning started out sorta slow, I'm going to guess mainly due the last minute change of address due to flooding in the originally planned location. But mid morning it picked up considerably, but I think that most of the sales for everyone including us were from vendor to vendor. That's why I never bring my own spending money to craft sales - because vendors like to buy from each other more than shoppers! :)

We sold some stuff, of course not as much as we had hoped, but you never do! We ended up raising $78, all of which went to Naika's family! It's a lot more than we expected to raise, so PRAISE GOD! :)

I've been busy this afternoon marking things as sold on our website, and working on listing new things, so please got check it out! There's lots there! :)

And please also check out our puzzle fundraiser we have going on for Lilly too!

Thank you!!!

My Crocheting Story Part 2

Since I posted Part 1 of my crocheting story last year, I figured I should post part two this year that I typed up to put in my Record book (explanation in Part 1). I love doing this to see where I was a year ago, and how far I have come in a year!

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My Crocheting Story

My favorite hobby has been the same for several years. That hobby – crocheting has taken me beyond my wildest dreams.

If you read my Crocheting Story last year you would have heard all about the first year of the Block Party, how that birthed my mission trip to Ukraine, and about the beginnings of the adoption of my little brother Elijah. As well as how I was selling items to bring him home. I’m going to leave off from there and tell you about this past year.

After an amazing benefit from our church raised all the money we needed to bring Elijah home, I decided to change my blog to Handiwork for Tori to raise money for another little girl who needed a family. After she got fully funded and found a family I changed my blog to Handiwork for Anastasia, but then Tori’s family decided to adopt her too! After that I went through Handiwork for Sergey, Handiwork for Eddie, Handiwork for Noah, Handiwork for Jonathan (my other new little brother), and Handiwork for Lilly, the current child.

My friend Rachel has also been helping me crochet things to sell since Handiwork for Jonathan. We sell most of our items on our blog – www.handiworkforelijah.blogspot.com, but we also do some craft sales.

Above is our business card, with Elijah at the top right and going clockwise to the bottom right and across are all the children we have featured – Tori, Anastasia, Sergey, Eddie, Noah, Jonathan, and Lilly on the top left. I’m so grateful that God has given me the gift to crochet so I can help these precious children in this way!!

Also thanks to the hobby of crocheting, this past year, I organized, with Rachel and my mother’s help, the second annual Block Party this past February. An explanation of the Block Party – I ask a bunch of knitters and crocheters to make 6 inch squares or blocks. Then on a Saturday morning, we get together and sew them together into blankets which we send over to Ukraine. In 2010, the first year, we had 308 blocks. This past year, my goal was to double that, and double we did!! We had a grand total of 659 blocks!!! The 308 blocks of last year made 8 blankets and 2 scarves; and the 659 of this year made about 18 blankets! A group of quilters also made 20 more quilts, out of fabric, not yarn. In addition to that, we had lots of scarves, slippers, hats, and other items of the sort donated too!

For this coming  made about 18 blankets! A group of quilters also made 20 more quilts, out of fabric, not yarn. In addition to that, we had lots of scarves, slippers, hats, and other items of the sort donated too!

For this coming year, the Third Annual block Party, my goal is 1000 blocks. I thought this goal was crazy at first! But hey, the Block Party isn’t till February, and we are currently just over 75% of our goal!!! Yep, we are just over 750 blocks!! Crazy? I think so!! I can’t wait to see the results of this year’s party and the follow year! J Here are picture’s from this past year’s party –

One of the finished quilts

Finished Blankets -

Do you know?

Do you know how much I hate blogs with a bad blogger? They are one of my pet peeves, yet from the looks of this blog I am one. :) I guess it's more fun to read other people's blogs (I'm following over 50 other blogs..), than to stay caught up on my own blog. So here's my promise to be a better blogger! I'm sure I've lost all of my readers, so thank you soo much if you are reading this!!!

Before I get back to crocheting in my next post, I have a few announcements.
This little boy:

Is going to be my new little brother soon! :) Yep, we are going back to EE to adopt another sweet little boy. We are going to name him Jonathan, and he will be one in July. Our paperwork was submitted to his country's government today (YAY!!), so hopefully we will be traveling in June! :) Please follow along on my mom's blog - My God is Lord.

Other announcements include my other blogs. I started Matthew 18:14, so I didn't bore my crocheting readers on this blog with orphan advocacy posts. :) And my other blog where I sell my crocheted items to help bring orphans home - I changed it again, this time to Handiwork for Jonathan. My button:

I guess that's it for now. Until next time (which won't be long!!), have a great day!

Sarah

Elijah, Tori, and Anastasiya

It's taken me a little longer than I wanted to get this post up, but I've been busy crocheting!! :)

You may remeber when I posted about my little brother we are adopting. If not, click here. On Octobeer 10th, our wonderful church family hosted the Elijah Joseph Packer Benefit. Even thought the Packers lost the game that day, we had a wonderful turn out. And, we raised a LOT of money to bring Elijah home. In fact we raised so much that we now have enough money to bring Elijah home!!! Thanks to many generous donations we raised $17,000!!! Don't we serve a great God??? You can read about the benefit here and here on my mom's blog.

So, after the benefit, I realized I needed to change my blog, Handiwork for Elijah because we had all the money we needed to bring Elijah home. I decided to change it to Tori (I posted about Tori here). Well, I changed my blog to Handiwork for Tori; but, with in 48 hours of me changing it to Tori, I found out she had a full grant!!! And a few days later I found out she had a family!!! Now there is a special thing about this family. They have adopted before, from Eastern Europe, and they adopted from the very same orphange/institution that I got to visit on my trip to Eastern Europe earlier this summer! How cool is that?

So I decided I needed to change my blog again. I had a hard time deciding between Noah and Anastasiya, both from Elijah's orphanage and listed on Reece's Rainbow. I decided to go with Anastasiya, and now my blog is Handiwork for Anastasiya. Please visit it here, and consider helping to bring Anastasiya home!!

My friend Genesis and I are also advocating for Anastasiya, and we started the blog Saving Anastasiya. Please visit and follow along on our journey to find sweet Anastasiya a family!!

Anastasiya

Tori

Elijah

Sorry this post didn't have much to do with crocheting but I hope you enjoyed it!! :)

My Crocheting Story

A few weeks ago we had to turn in our Record Books for 4-H. If you're a 4-H member, or have been in 4-H you probably know all about record books, but if not, I'll explain them to you. As a 4-H member, after the fair you have to turn in your record book. You have to fill out you pages of all the different projects you did, include pictures of what you showed at fair and what placings you got, fill out several forms, include pictures of other 4-H activities, and write a 4-H story about your past year in 4-H. It all has to be neat and organized and when you turn it in, your club leaders can nominate you, (depending on the neatness and how well it's put together) for an outstanding record book. Then the books that get nominated are turned in to the county, and the county decides if they deserve an outstanding record book award. Since crocheting has been most of my 4-H year and I knew I wouldn't be able to fit all of it on the 4-H Story sheet, I decided to write My Crocheting Story which I added below. Sorry that it's a little long, but enjoy!


My Crocheting Story


I love to crochet and my love for crocheting has given me many opportunities I never would have had otherwise.

In March of 2009, I started crocheting. My mom taught me, and I started by making a scarf. At first my tension was really tight, but I got better by the end of the scarf. I made several things for the 2009 county fair. I showed my scarf, on which I got a third (yes, I agree that it should have been a third, but the judge should have given me a little bit of break because it was my first project!); and I showed a pack of six hair scrunchies that I made, on which I got a first. I also showed a set of two pot holders, on which I got a second; a set of two dish cloths, on which I got a first, and a Merit Award; and a baby hat, on which I got a first place.

Because of my success at fair I started crocheting more, and at the end of August I decided to start my own business selling crocheted items. I got several orders, and I sold dish cloths at a small craft shop for a while. I started my own crocheting and sewing blog in November (forhisgloryhandiwork.blogspot.com). I also sold some of my items at the Craft Sale at the Christmas Fair at the library in Winneconne. I made Christmas presents for my family, and I learned a lot about making up my own patterns.

In February, I decided to host a Block Party. I asked a bunch of friends who knit and crochet to start making 6 inch blocks. Then in March we all got together and sewed together the squares into blankets for charity. We collected over 300 squares which made 8 blankets and two scarves!! We also collected 23 pairs of slippers, 2 pairs of baby booties, 4 baby sweaters, 34 crocheted baby hats, 17 knit baby hats, and 21 flannel baby blankets!! Below are pictures.

I made over 60 squares, 14 baby hats, 21 flannel blankets, a baby sweater, and 12 pairs of slippers myself. As we prayed about where to send the blankets, my mom came up with the idea to send them to Ukraine. We have a friend who is a short-term missionary and she had been to Ukraine several times, and had spoken of a young man named Max who runs an amazing ministry that reaches out to the lost and forgotten of Ukraine. While emailing with Renae, Max’s contact person in the U.S., about the need for blankets, and what size to make them, she asked if we would be interested in going on a mission trip to Ukraine in July this summer. My mom couldn’t go on the trip as she still had a nursing baby at home, so my mom and I decided that me and my dad should go on the mission trip. We dropped the idea on my dad at supper that night, and after several weeks he finally said yes!

We were able to get-together with the team that was going to Ukraine at the end of April for a packing party. We sorted all of things everyone had collected to send to Max (including all the blankets and other things collected from the Block Party!) and packed them into tubs to ship to him. We ended up with eleven 60 pound, 35/45 gallon tubs full of stuff!! As we got closer to leaving I started another blog to blog about our trip (ukrainemissiontrip2010.blogspot.com). We had several more team meetings before the trip.

We flew out of Minneapolis on July 1, 2010. I was just starting the best trip of my life (so far) and it all started with crocheting. We then flew to Chicago, and then on to Germany, and then to our destination – Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. Ukraine was a former part of the U.S.S.R., and the area we were in speaks Russian, but we had translators. We had an amazing ministry time while we were there.

Most of the time we ministered in an adult handicapped home. We were at the facility most of the time but we also took them to outings to the beach a couple of times. We also go to visit the teen dorms, new mother dorms, baby orphanage, and children’s handicapped facility. There are only about 15 ladies at the adult handicapped home, and 300 men. One of these ladies is named Valla. From what I heard after, she had talked to almost everyone on our team (through a translator) and it just happened to be me who she talked to when she said she needed new slippers, because the ones she was wearing were getting old and had holes in them. I told her I would make some new ones and bring them to her next time I saw her. So I was able to go back to our apartment that night and crochet her a pair of slippers. I brought them to her the next day, and she loved them and kept saying how beautiful they were. It was so special to me that I was able to see what my hobby could do in the life of one of the lost and forgotten of Ukraine. I hope they fit her as she didn’t try them on as she was saving them for winter. I was also able to make a kitchen set for our amazing cooks while we were there. That trip changed my life and it helped me see how I could use my talents in the mission field.

A couple weeks after I got back, I showed more of my crocheting at fair. You can see pictures of those in the following pages. (Or since you aren't reading my record book, you can go here to se what I showed! :) )

I am currently back to selling things, but this time I am raising money for my little brother, Elijah’s adoption from Eastern Europe. Elijah will be three on Sept. 17, and he has Down Syndrome, and other heart and kidney problems. This adoption was not because of the trip, but Ukraine and the country he is in are very similar, and we were able to see places like the place he is living now, and places he will be in the future if he lives to be an adult. In the orphanage Elijah is currently in, the children are transferred to a mental institution at the age of four, where they are basically tied in a crib for the rest of their lives. 95% of these children die within the first year there. Because of his medical condition, we are trying to get him home as soon as possible, and my parents hope to be traveling in Dec. to get him. I started a 3rd blog, and I am selling my crocheted items on it to raise money to bring him home (handiworkforeliajh.blogspot.com). You can also visit my mom’s adoption blog – mygodislord.blogspot.com, to find out where we are in the process.

I hope to someday go back to Ukraine, and teach one or two people in the handicapped home how to make slippers. Since they have so much time on their hands, they will be able to make slippers for everyone in the facility, and no one will have cold feet during the winter. This is a dream of mine, and I am a long way from being there, but I hope someday God will be able to fulfill it, hopefully through me! :)
Without crocheting, I would not have gone on the mission trip, and we probably still would have adopted, but I wouldn’t be able to help with funds as much as I am now. Crocheting has definitely changed my life and I can’t wait to see what new adventures it leads me on.

A New Blog, More Handiwork, And a New Little Brother!!!!

A New Blog, More Handiwork, And a New Little Brother!!!! All in one! :) Yes, I have started a new blog. Yes, there will be more of my handiwork involved. And the cause is a fundraiser for my little brother! My family has decided to adopt a little boy named Elijah from Eastern Europe. I am selling my handiwork on my new blog to raise money to help bring him home!! Some of the things I will be selling there are - dish cloths, pot holders, slippers, scarves, hats, sewn bags, sewn cloth napkins, baby accessories, sun hats, and much more! Please stop in at our adoption blog and read about our adoption journey! - mygodislord.blogspot.com. And please stop by my new blog too and see what I currently have for sale! - handiworkforelijah.blogspot.com. We are doing everything we can to get my new little brother home here, and one of the ways I'm helping is with my new blog!

Elijah Joseph!