Saturday, September 26, 2009

Donation Received for Project #1

Yesterday in the mail, I received two separate donations. I am posting them in the order in which they were in my mail box. (I will post about the second one on Monday.) The above hats came wrapped up in heartfelt packaging from cmunholland of Ravelry.

They are wonderfully crafted and are very soft. I absolutely love the color, and have requested her pattern(s) so I might be able to make one for myself. If possible, I would like to compile a pattern link list on our Yahoo Groups page so participants can browse there for inspiration.

I think the one on the right is Spring Beret by Natalie Larson. It is available on Ravelry (here).

My requested donation from any one person is only one item for each project, so she has even gone beyond expectations with her generosity in donating two hats. Thank you so much, cmunholland!!

I have seen comments here and there about this project by people who express a wish to help, but a lack of time to personally create an item. For those of you who fall into this category, let me remind you that Etsy, Artfire, and 1000 Markets sell handmade items, and many shops offer hats and slippers at very reasonable prices. If you wish to contribute, you could purchase a handmade item and still be able to donate it to the cause.

To date (including what will be featured on Monday's post), we have received 3 pair of slippers and 5 hats. The deadline for this project is not until October 25, so you still have time if you would like to participate.

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Thursday, September 24, 2009

October 2009 Challenge

(My completed hat for the October 2009 challenge)

I have mentioned the project from Sharing Our Gifts that is currently doing a hat and slippers drive for Veterans in Southern Oregon. This project will be our team project for October, and the deadline to have these received by me is October 25, so please allow appropriate mail time. I will be presenting these to my contact at the facility on November 2, just in time for Veteran's Day.

Further details and updates for the project can be found on the Sharing Our Gifts blog, but here are the basics:

Our 50 states tour begins in the beautiful state of Oregon. We will be making
hats and slippers for Veterans at the Southern Oregon - White City Rehabilitation Center. It is a 600 bed facility, and I am told that they always appreciate hats and slippers. These can be knitted, crocheted, or sewn. The key is that they must be handmade. If you don't make items yourself, but you want to contribute, you could purchase handmade items at Etsy, Artfire, 1000 Markets, or some other handmade venue. They should be size and color appropriate for adult males (slipper size 10-12), and machine washable.

The address to send your items for this project is:

Sinclair
P.O. Box 1046
Jacksonville, Oregon 97530

Please leave me a comment here or on our Yahoo Groups page to let me know you are participating in the challenge, and please help spread the word even outside the boundaries of the Hoarders Unite group. As always, our group goal is to use up stash yarn and supplies before purchasing more. Visit our Yahoo Groups page to upload your project photos and to share pattern ideas.

Happy Creating!



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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Change The World Wednesday

(click the logo to go to Reduce Footprints' site)

I am a miserable failure this week at ridding my house of paper towels. I normally don't buy them, but there are already several rolls in the house, and I DID try to cut back...but I caught myself grabbing for one and using it before I even realized I had done so. I am going to have to continue to work on this one. When this supply is gone, I am going to try to go without paper towels.

This week's challenge:

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This week we're all about kids ... after all, they will take the "green torch" and become environmental "Olympians". So this week, your challenge is to do an environmentally friendly activity with your kids (or grand kids or neighbor kids or nieces/nephews, cousins, etc). Get them involved. Need some ideas? Here you go:

Awesome Activities

Kaboose

Kids Links (Teaching Green)

Gardening for Kids

Once you've done the activity, we want to know about it ... so come back here and leave a comment (either with the activity or a link to a post) ... or if they did something fun during the summer like an Eco-Camp, tell us about that. We'd also be interested in little Eco-Stars ... kids who have taken it upon themselves to come up with green living ideas.

Or ...

If you don't have any accessible kids to have "green" fun with, then write an article about ways that we can get kids involved in an Eco-friendly lifestyle.
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Good luck, and start your engines eco-friendly inspirational power sources...

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Wednesday, September 16, 2009

New Banner and Badge

Nancy (of themailbag.etsy and nanalee.etsy) and I decided that we needed a bit of a sprucing up regarding our banner, badge, and colors. Nancy created a nice celtic badge that is available on our Yahoo Groups page, and I had a new banner and badge made by Custom Graphics on Etsy.

The banner and badge were created with a font that I very much like, but it does not come with any possibility of upper case H and U, so these will be sent anew with a corrected font within a few days. I do hope you all like the change. I will upload the badge and banner with the corrected font as soon as I receive it. I will be notifying Etsy teams support also, so they can update our team profile page. Feel free to grab the badge if you like, either from the blog or from the Yahoo Groups page.

Post Edit: It appears we will be keeping the font as is for the time being. If it becomes a problem in the future, or active group members would like a change, we will look at another remodel at that time.

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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Stripey goes to Sacramento

Just wanted to share with you the finished donation sock monkey for the Craft Hope Project #4. He is complete and went out in the mail yesterday to his destination. Amilia fell in love with him and gave him a very warm goodbye. We sent him off with loving thoughts and a note to his new human.

Hop on over to Craft Hope and see the photos of the 101 monkeys they have already received...

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Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Sharing Our Gifts Across America feature

This is a cross-over post because I wanted to share with you the wonderful places on which my project has been featured today. We are growing each day, and getting the word out there. Today, we are featured in TWO places!

1. DinnerTime Chimes has featured us on the Etsy Team blog NCTriangle. Even though our project is not specifically Etsy, this team blog has opened its arms to our project, and I am so thankful for the mention. Check out the blog and all the wonderful Etsy sellers there as well.

2. Kae at Kae1Crafts has joined our project drive and has featured us in her blog post today as well. Kae has two Etsy shops: one for her crafts and one for supplies (shops currently on vacation mode). She also has her own ongoing charity project, donating knitted wool helmet liners to military troops. Specifics on her project and how you can help are found on her Squidoo page.

Visit and Stumble It! Even if you cannot personally engage in either of these projects, please Stumble this post and visit each of the links and Stumble those as well. Then, if you Twitter, tweet the projects for us. For Sharing Our Gifts, please add the hashtag #sharingourgifts to your tweets. (you can just hit the Tweet This button at the bottom of this post if you like, and use the Share This button above the post.)

Thanks Kae and DinnerTimeChimes!
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