Sponsor a Child in Haiti

Long before a catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, World Vision has been providing Haitians with basic necessities and orphan care.  AIDS is a serious epidemic in Haiti that has orphaned 380,000 children.  You can help one of these children by being a sponsor.  Click here to learn how.

Christmas shopping? Keep these folks in mind.

I love to browse on etsy.com.  I get so much inspiration just seeing what other crafty people are doing.   If you’re not familiar with etsy, then now’s the time!  Etsy is a website that lets people sell their handmade items.  I used to have a “shop” on etsy before I created my own website.  Etsy is a great place to find unique items for Christmas while supporting small, craft businesses.
There are actually a lot of people using etsy to sell their handmade products in an effort to raise money for theirs or someone else’s adoption.  That’s how I got started on there!  To find these sellers, you can do a search for “adoption” and many items being sold to fundraise will come up.  To help you out, I’ve posted some that I found.  Click on the picture and it will take you to the etsy store. 

Christmas Gifts are Here!

As promised, Christmas soaps and Gift Boxes are here!  Premade Gift Boxes are very limited, only THREE in stock!  You can choose the Mint collection, Ginger collection or Cranberry collection.

You  also have the option of creating your own gift box of soaps.  Each gift box can hold up to three soaps!  After you order a Make-Your-Own Christmas Gift Box, you can send me a message at check out telling me which three soaps you want in your gift box.  I’ll take care of the rest!

Don’t forget to check my blog regularly for Discount Codes I’ll randomly post between now and Christmas!  They’ll be good for one time, one day only.  Catch one if you can!

What Are You Waiting For?

Today is a special day for me.  One year ago today, we received a referral from our adoption agency.

Waiting for our referral was an emotional time for me, mostly because I was concerned that I wouldn’t know how to turn down the first referral we received.  But what if the first referral wasn’t the one we should accept?  How could I turn away a child? 

About a week before we received our referral, God laid it on my heart that our son would have a Biblical name.

Our first referral was for a one month old boy…named Abraham. 

Here’s a look back at 2009 and our time of waiting.

Waiting for Abraham

It’s in the Details

I found these adorable Christmas votive candles at Michael’s Craft Store about a month ago and thought they’d be a perfect part of my Christmas Gift Boxes!  The only thing I didn’t like was that they looked a little plain.  No problem!  I had fun dressing them up with cute Christmas bows!  The Christmas Gift Boxes are almost finished and will make great gifts for someone who loves a bit of pampering!

Cocoa Mint Gift Box: one bar of handmade Cocoa Mint Soap, handmade Peppermint Lotion and a votive candle in Evergreen fragrance.

Help AIDS Orphans Receive an Education

I’ve been reading the awesome and inspiring story of Twesigye Jackson Kaguri and his devotion to building a school for AIDS orphans in his community in Uganda.  It’s called the Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project.  Their mission, as stated on their website, is “to provide a high-quality, free education, both formal and informal, to children who have been orphaned due to HIV/AIDS in order to counteract pervasive hunger, poverty and systemic deprivation.”

You can help these awesome children achieve their dreams by giving a monetary donation  OR, and this sounds like a lot of fun, you can host a Grandmothers Basket Party!  “When you host a Basket Party, you become part of a growing circle of people who are helping impoverished Ugandan women rise out of poverty” (Nyaka website).  Many AIDS orphans are raised by their grandmothers, who had to watch their own children die from AIDS.  Now, in their old age, they must care for their grandchildren with very little resources.  The money raised from a Basket Party helps these grandmothers care for their grandchildren.  The baskets look beautiful!

You can follow the Nyaka Foundation on Facebook.

Pack a Shoebox!

Operation Christmas Child is a ministry by Samaritan’s Purse that distributes shoe boxes filled with toys, clothes, school supplies, but mostly, HOPE!  Their mission is to demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way to needy children around the world. Many of these children are displaced by civil war or are orphans.  For many of these children, this is the only present they’ll get at Christmas.  And for orphans, it is most likely the only things they can call “mine”. 

Shoe box collection week is November 15 –22.  Consider packing a shoebox this year and sharing hope with a child who needs it.

You can find more information here.

Check out the total joy this boy has in receiving his shoe box. AND he hadn’t even opened it yet!

A Day of Making Lotion

Handmade lotion is the BEST!  Sure, I’m a bit biased, but honestly, you can’t beat the rich oils and butters and lack of chemicals and alcohol when it comes to winter skin.  I spent Sunday whipping up 72 ounces of moisture-rich, creamy lotion and then divided it into five, fragrant batches.  Here’s a peek at how I did it.

The first step is to sterilize everything that will come into contact with the lotion.  Jars, lids, mixers, bowls, spoons, droppers…you name it.  I sterilized everything using a water/bleach solution.  Once it’s sterile, I set it out to dry.

Then, I start the measuring and melting process.  I use a basic lotion recipe that’s based on percentages.  You can find it here.  It allows me to use any variety of lotions and butters that I want.  For this batch, I used Sweet Almond Oil, Avocado Oil, Cocoa Butter and Vitamin E Oil.  Below, I’m measuring the Cocoa Butter.  It smells just like chocolate!  Mmmmm!

Next, it’s time to blend my water with my oil/butter/emulsifying wax/stearic acid mix. 

Once the oils and water mix and the batch starts to thicken, I add my preservative.  I use a paraben-free preservative.  Once it was to a thickness I liked, I divided and scented five batches.  Here are the final lotions; ready for Christmas!

Make Your World Bigger

This month, you can make your world bigger by reading a book about adoption and the orphan crisis.  On the right of my blog, I’ve created a list of books that I read during our adoption journey.  Whether or not you’re considering adoption, I think you’ll find these books interesting.  I hope they deepen your understanding of how desperately these children need us.

“My Own Little World”–Matthew West

National Adoption Awareness Month

On January 24, 2010 we were united with our son, Abraham.  We had waited 18 months and traveled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to get him, and I wouldn’t trade the experience for all the world. I love my sweet, little boy!  I tell people that it wasn’t just our work and effort that brought him home, it was the generosity of friends and family that helped make it possible.  He’s our son and part of our family, but he’s also part of a larger family and community of people who prayed for us, helped organize our garage sale, donated items for us to sell, gave money, and who bought A LOT of soap. 

November  is National Adoption Awareness Month.  I read a statistic once that said, if just 1% of self-professed Christians adopted a child, there would be no more orphans.  Wow!  There are currently about 145 MILLION orphans world-wide (UNICEF 2008).  That number does NOT include abandonment or sold/trafficked children (which is estimated to be in the millions). 
We may not all be called to help solve the orphan crisis by adopting a child, but we can certainly help in other ways.  Throughout November,  I’m going to post something you can do to help orphans.  I hope you’ll take some time to be a voice for the voiceless.                                 Abraham on his 1st Birthday!

Time to Make the Lotion

My lotion supplies came today from Bramble Berry!  Yay!  I’ll spend the weekend making lotions that are chock-full of moisturizing goodness: Cocoa Butter, Sweet Almond Oil, Avocado Oil, and Vitamin E Oil.  Then, I’ll fragrance them to match some of the Christmas gift baskets that will be ready soon: Cranberry Fig, Ginger Orange, Peppermint….Mmmmmm.  I can’t wait!

November 7, 2010 is Orphan Sunday

How will you answer their cries?

Why Love Orphans? from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.