For Beautiful Baby

So many of you know that I love to paint. And you probably know that I love to sew too. I just love anything crafty. I love to make things. I blogged about the baby bedding that I made a little while ago, and that was the first thing I had sewn in probably 12 years. I decided to make some baby clothes, and, well, the idea exploded and now I'm making and selling baby and young children's clothes on Etsy. I also will be selling some of my paintings.

I came up with the name because I am making clothes to raise funds to help out with the adoption costs for our Beautiful Baby, and also because I'm making clothes for your beautiful baby. Cheesy? Maybe a little, but I never claimed to be a marketing genius.

This is what I spent all last week doing, and I usually tell my mom everything, but I was so busy sewing away, we barely talked all week, and I never told her what I was doing. Now, just to be clear, in the span of about a week, this went from a suggestion from a friend to look, I just opened a store. I sent her a quick email after I set up my store, with the link, and said, "I opened up an Etsy shop. It would be great if you could help me advertise." She responded with, "Is this real? Is this a joke?" I got a good chuckle out of that. She has no clue what Etsy is, and she probably was thinking I opened up like, a real store. But I know, even thought she didn't say so, she is supporting me. She is just so good like that, so supportive. She's my #1 fan. =)

I really love doing this. It is my passion. It is a talent that God gave me, and I love to be able to use it.
I am so excited about my shop, and I know that in order for it to do well, God has to bless it. I can sew my heart out, and make fabulous stuff, but unless God blesses it, it won't do any good. So I'm asking all my supporters and prayer warriors, please pray for me. Pray for my shop, and pray that God would bless my efforts, and that through this He would help us raise the money so we can bring our Beautiful Baby home!

Here are some of my outfits. To see them all, go to http://www.etsy.com/shop/ForBeautifulBaby

Great Wall of Diapers

I think I've mentioned before that I've been stocking up on diapers. At first I would just buy a big box every time I went to Walmart. Then I learned about people getting them super cheap, and now I'm trying to stock up on them when I can get a good price.  I just realized I've been doing this for a year now, and I've been putting most of them under our bed, so I couldn't see them, and really had no idea how many I had. I decided it was a good idea to get them out and see if I needed more, or had too many of a particular size, etcetera.

Behold: The Great Wall of Diapers! That's 1,724 diapers. I counted.

The sad thing is, according to most people and their estimates, That's about half of what I need. However, I think those people are the types of people that change the diaper every time it gets wet. I mean, let's be realistic people, I don't have all day to change diapers. I mean, I don't wait till it's sagging past their knees or anything, but they pee every 5 minutes, especially when they're little. It has been a few years since I had one in diapers, though, so maybe I'm remembering wrong. I think I've done a pretty good job getting a head start, and since I've worked tirelessly clipping coupons, researching sales, and running to 5 different stores to get all the deals, Cory has graciously agreed to change all the diapers. Or he will agree to it.  I forget which one. I'm sure I can convince him. 

I've had baby on my mind so much lately. The fist 6 months or so I couldn't think of anything else, and then for a few months I was able to distract myself with hobbies, and now I'm back to thinking about her. you know how a particular time rolls around, and you're like "Wow, was it really a whole year ago that that happened? Where did the year go to? It went by so fast!"  Well, looking back to last year, I'm more like, "Wow, was it really only a year ago? It feels more like 5 years, 3 months, and 21 days!" 

I've been thinking about how I've been making all these clothes for her, and making her bedding, and having fun decorating and preparing, I have never met this child, she's not even alive yet, and I already love her so much! It's like with God, He has always loved us, even before we existed, He loved us. Even when we were sinning against Him, and hated Him, he still loved us. I love how this process so far has been such a reminder of salvation, and how we are adopted by God. I guess that's sort of the purpose of it, to imitate Christ, and to be the hands and feet of Jesus, and caring for the orphans. It's a sweet reminder. 

It's funny though, because when I get where I'm thinking about her a lot, I dream about it all the time too. And I have some really crazy, vivid dreams. I dreamed about her the past two nights, and last night, I dreamed that we finally got the call, and it was a 1-year-old instead of a newborn, which is fine with us, but I was like, "Oh no! All these clothes I've made were size 0-3 months!" Then my mom dreamed that we went somewhere to pick out a baby, and they had all these babies laying around and they were all dolled up, and some of them had lipstick on, and she kept thinking "Why do they have lipstick on?!" You know I'm going to have to do a photo shoot just for her when I get our baby! =)

Sew happy!

I've been stockpiling fabric ever since I made the bedding and got hooked on sewing. It's something about making it yourself, it's so much better than shopping! I've been staring at my pile for a while, and everytime I sat down to make something, I'd browse the web for three hours trying to get an idea, then give up because it was past my bedtime. 

Well, I'm pleased to announce that I finally made something! I made a little dress. It is incredibly cute! I know it looks kind of orange in the picture, but its more like a coral/melon pink. I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and just wanted to share. 

We still haven't heard anything, but I've been spending my time trying to learn how those crazy couponers get diapers for crazy low prices. The best I've managed is $4.50 for a small pack. Not a bad deal, but still not free. I think they get a coupon for, let's say, mustard that's on sale for $1, but the coupon says $2 off, and so the store actually pays them to take the mustard. So they get a billion mustard coupons, and buy a billion bottles of mustard, and the rest of their groceries end up being covered by that. I don't really have a need for a billion bottles of mustard, and I don't want to go around stealing newspapers out of driveways so I can get multiple coupons. I'll just have to be content with my $4 diapers!