Monday, August 26, 2013

August Donations

July was a busy month and August is proving to be even busier. I photographed 6 angels in about 1 months time. I used my first crochet outfits for a set of twins in July. I finally gave someone an outfit I had made (a goal of mine this year). And then I took 2 weeks off and now I'm trying to get caught back up with making outfits and editing photos.

Here are some of the things that have come in this month:

This was after spending 1 week at my mom's house. A huge donation of outfits, flowers, bracelet sets, headbands, diapers, some blankets and my grandma let me raid some of her fabric boxes to see what I could use. Yes - all of this was donated in a week's time. 

And this was the next week - some wildlife blankets, a couple gowns, and some more diapers

I made up these tags a while back for some memory boxes a friend was making. I revamped them and now they are tags for our closet to add in the bags with the outfits so people will know where to find more information about angel baby outfits. Most of the cards have a blank spots for names of angel babies which the outfits are donated in memory of. 

We've also sent quite a bit out this month as well:
And this is a set of neutral outfits we sent to a hospital in New York along with some other angel baby crafter people.

This set when to a mom who had lost her little girl the week before. It wasn't used on the baby, but just a remembrance for the mom of the size of her daughter.

Last night I packed up a whole box of outfits to go to a photographer friend who was on her way to a middle of the night NILMDTS photo shoot an hour away. Sometimes we are spread thin and someone has to drive a long ways. There are 52 NILMDTS photographers in Utah. But that's not enough for the number of losses we get each month. 

And we started an adoption program on our Facebook page - you can now post pieces of sets that you have and others can adopt them and finish them off. It makes it really fun to coordinate and bring more people in on projects. https://www.facebook.com/groups/143567529150005/
We keep this page up and going and there are lots of sharing things, ideas/outfits/questions etc going on. Come and visit us if you want to know more first hand what we have going on.

Please note: if you donate diapers made from the Teeny Tears pattern without cards we CANNOT pass them along. Please include cards with your donations of diapers.

And we've had a couple really neat stories about outfits this month:

1: A photographer friend stopped by to get some outfits on her way to the hospital for a shoot. When she got up to the hospital they told her the mom had changed her mind and didn't want pictures at all. My friend offered the outfits anyway and the nurses came back a minute later saying the mom had fallen in love with one of the outfits and had changed her mind, that she definitely did want pictures now. It was an outfit I had made. It made my heart happy for days to hear that story.

2: Another photographer friend was out of town and was going to do a shoot for a friend of hers. My family lives close and my 14 year old sister has been working tirelessly on outfits for several months, and saving them all so she can show everything she's made in November for a project she's working on. When she found out there was a need for an outfit and we asked if we could have one of hers she told us that she had made the outfits to be used, not just to show her friends. We managed to get the outfits up to the photographer in time and we had others on stand-by in case we needed more help.

People are truly amazing and giving. I really can't open my closet without feeling love come spilling out of the open door. It truly is amazing. I continue to be inspired by all the wonderful giving people who make this closet a reality. Thank you to all of you out there. I know there are often times it feels like no one values the work you do, but I wish you could see the looks on some of the parents faces when we give them beautiful, appropriately sized outfits