Thursday, October 21, 2010

Introducing...

The first long awaited Christmas Dress!  I have had a very hard time finding fabric that I feel is vintage enough, sweet enough, not too cheesy, not too Christmasy, but still Christmas...and this is what I have come up with!  The 12 Days of Christmas in a sweet, vintage, maids-a-milking kind of dress.  LOVE!
The fabric is a simply sweet toile with an ivory background and teal, black, olive and red accents depicting the 12 days of Christmas. 
Is is designed by Sharon Sowell for Clothworks and it is HARD TO FIND!  So, if you are interested in this dress you need to let me know ASAP :)  It features a round apron with a red or teal bias edge (depending on the sleeve color).  I am going to make my older daughter this dress with teal sleeves to change it up a bit.  The back ties for a vintage look.  Finally...the apron is embellished with hand designed ornaments for the final holiday touch.  This dress will sell for $50.
Merry Christmas!

Monday, October 11, 2010

Profits to help orphans in GULU!

If you have ever read my personal blog, I’ve shared with you before about Sweet Sleep, a nonprofit ministry based in Nashville which provides beds, bedding and Bibles to orphaned and abandoned children around the world (http://www.sweetsleep.org/). This past June, I traveled with Sweet Sleep to Uganda to help provide over 100 beds to Blessed Hope Orphanage.  Thanks to you, Sweet Sleep has done amazing work in northern Uganda. And, with your support RIGHT NOW, we can do it again. This month Wonderfully Made will donate 10% of all profits to help build 700 beds in Northern Uganda.


Here’s the situation:

Sweet Sleep and their partner, American Refugee Committee (ARC), is working with hundreds of thousands of children living in child-headed households in the IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps in northern Uganda. 20 years ago, the government of Uganda placed every person in every tribe into these camps to protect them from rebels which were attacking the North over two decades. A few years ago this area finally began to experience peace, however today, more than a million people are still living in these camps. An estimated 750,000 of these people are children who are orphans with no place to go. ARC is working to trace each child by their family name back to their home tribe. They then work with village leaders to determine what land their family owned and reclaim it for them. As part of the process, each resettled child receives a new hut from ARC.

Being resettled gives a child hope and a chance for a new life. There’s just one problem: the children have been afraid to leave. Until now.

Even though the Ugandan Government has closed these camps, it is very difficult to get all of the children to leave. The children in these child-headed households were born in these camps – it’s simply all they’ve ever known.

In January of this year, as Sweet Sleep’s partnerships began in northern Uganda, ARC hoped to resettle 600 children. This was more than the number of children they resettled in 2009, but they were hoping the children would have a good response to the opportunity of being provided with a bed, net and Bible.

By the end of this June, Sweet Sleep had already provided ARC with the full amount of beds, nets and Bibles they’d requested for the entire year! Much to the amazement of ARC leadership, the children are now lining up to leave the camps to be resettled into their home villages. The children are sharing with ARC and Sweet Sleep that they never imagined they could have such a thing as a bed, mosquito net or a Bible of their own. Many other organizations in northern Uganda have come to ARC to ask how they’ve been able to get so many children to resettle. Who would have known something as simple as a bed, mosquito net and Bible could be so completely profound on a child’s life? Amazing. Simply amazing!

So, my friends, here’s where you come in. ARC recently asked Sweet Sleep to provide 700 more beds to the additional children they’ll be able to resettle this November -- in just 25 days! But we can’t resettle these children without you. A resettlement kit with a straw mat, new mattress, blanket, mosquito net and Bible is just $50!

$50 to help a child find hope, peace and comfort in their new home. And thanks to some wonderful friends of Sweet Sleep’s, any gifts given to help resettle these children in October will be matched 100%! We need just 350 friends to give $50 or 175 people to give $100 – we can do this, right? So take a moment and think – how many beds can I provide? I know you’ll sleep sweeter knowing a child has come home and will sleep sweetly because of your gift. Just go to www.sweetsleep.org to donate any amount and be sure to write “Gulu” in the comment box.

One more thing….read this letter from a child Sweet Sleep resettled in June. Let’s work together to help more sweet orphans like David finally come home.

Dear Sweet Sleep,
My name is David. I am 14 years old and am in primary four. I would like to thank you, Sweet Sleep for giving me the mattresses and mostly the Bible.
Now days I know more about God than I did before because I read my Bible and after I go for a sleep on my soft mattress. Am very happy this days because I start sleep right when I got on to my bed till morning without feeling any pain.
So I again thank God for that special gift which I was not even expecting in my life and not forgetting to pray for you and also the organization called Sweet Sleep.
Thank you so much from David.
God Bless You.

Who can resist these smiles??
Blessings,
Audra

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Old Hickory Harvest Festival

Wonderfully Made is participating in it's very first craft festival this Saturday from 11-3 pm!  It is Located in the Parking Lot next to the Community Garden 1105 Hadley Ave, Old Hickory, TN 37138
I am a little nervous because I have never done anything like this before...this will be a learning experience for me for sure!  I am going to have samples of all of my dresses and outfits, swatches of fabric and I will take orders.  This is a family event so I will also have fun things for the kids to do and of course and prize and candy bucket :)  So, it will be fun for sure.  If you live in the area come by and check it out!!