Art for Charity

I spent some time recently creating with donating in mind.  Here's what I ended up making.

**Six infant onesies that I'll be donating to Love Twice.  Four of these onesies are a new design. I used vintage crocheted flowers and painstakingly sewed them on each onesie. I believe I originally saw an idea like this on Pinterest a while ago.  I got the crochet flowers from Crafts Bit & Pieces for about .25 cents each. Three of the onesie were donated from a coworker and the other two I purchased at Savers for a dollar each.

Loved Twice:  http://lovedtwice.org/

CLOTHING AMERICA’S BABIES IN NEED

We’re a non-profit organization clothing newborns in need with quality reused baby clothing for the first year of life. We collect gently-used baby clothes, sort these precious garments into boy and girl wardrobes-in-a-box, and distribute them exclusively through social workers in hospitals, shelters, and clinics.

Ours is a simple solution that supports disadvantaged babies while recycling thousands of onesies, swaddling blankets, and babywear that would otherwise end up in landfills.

**Update: I received the below thank you letter from the organization regarding the onesie donation. Although I don't expect to ever here from places when I made donations it is always nice when I do. The letter is below.

**I also spent an afternoon at my friend's house this weekend creating art. I brought over supplies to create Thank You cards for the Pay It Forward Postcards blog recommendation to Splashes of Joy Inc..  I made 4 sets of 4 cards. The images are general images found on google (thank you artists!). I printed them out, put them face down on the cards and used a transfer method to transfer the images onto each card. Then I actually used some patience and a thin black marker and hand drew over parts of each image, added my own flair and drew a border on each.  I then handstamped THANK YOU on each card.

Information on Splashes of Joy Inc.   http://joysplashers.org/

Splashes of Joy Inc., a Montana-based, nonprofit organization provides gifts and services to ill or homebound people to help rekindle their internal joy that may have been temporarily lost due to illness or age. Volunteers provide meals, prayer support, house cleaning, home repair and help with pets, as requested. Local vendors donate products ranging from landscaping materials and balloons to manicures and haircuts. Splashes of Joy also provides a free library of uplifting DVDs and CDs for recipients, as well as a caretaker support group for those sustaining them.
Splashes of Joy would welcome donations of handmade greeting cards to share with the individuals they serve and work with. Uplifting cards of hope and encouragement; cards for birthdays and holidays; as well as thank you cards would be very much appreciated. You can learn more about this organization at www.joysplashers.org.

MotherLove Project

This month's art charity was chosen from a book I picked up for .75 at Craft Bits & Pieces a week or so ago.  It's awesome because this woman who started out donating art creations to charities started a blog and eventually got others on board.  Her book is a collection of different charities and crafty art donations you can donate to.  I chose the MotherLove program through the YWCA of Asheville for this month's charity art donation.  http://www.ywcaofasheville.org/site/c.7oIEJQPxGeISF/b.8131583/k.2A86/MotherLove.htm

The book gives an idea of a project you can donate and patterns.  This one was to embroider a bird with a flower pattern on the top right side of a white onesie and then dip the bottom half in a colored dye.  Well, of course I took my own spin on what I created.  My co-worker had a bunch of like new onesies that her daughter has out grown. They were all in awesome condition and she was happy to donate them to this cause.  I searched for some baby friendly images online and then free hand embroidered them on the onesies.  I then used a Michaels coupon and picked up a calming shade of green dye for $1.23.  I haven't tie dyed in a long time and didn't even know it required salt. So after a trip to the grocery store I stood in the kitchen with a couple of pots, the dye and salt while scratching my head trying to figure out the directions.  In the end I winged it and just did what I thought I should do.  Instead of dipping the bottom half solid into the dye I decided to tie dye the bottom half and used rubber bands to create the tie dye effect.  A little dye accidentally got on the spoon I was using, then on my hands, then on a onesie which created a kind of cool different color look all over the onesie.

In the end I made 7 onesies in about 3 hours worth of work (this was mostly while watching a movie). ;)  It was pretty easy and fun to do.  My co-worker who donated the onesies has a bunch more. She liked the look without the tie dye but I liked them either way. I may create some more with a one color dye look and without dye. Who knows... maybe I'll even sell them on my Esty shop someday if I ever get it started. :)