Amanda’s Musings

As promised I have had a look at the available SIM (Serving In Mission) projects to which I can donate my coming sales and have settled on a project choice.

Before I share with you my choice I had better give a summary of the July and August sales. The project for the last two months was Malawi Church Leaders HIV & AIDS Training (96352). $US40 was needed to train one Pastor. The total in sales was $US82.50, a lot less than the past few months but enough to train two Pastors.

Thank you to those who purchased from my shops these last two months, the money will be forwarded this week.

Now, on to the project for the next two months. I have decided on a very interesting work to send the sales money to this time, the work of Deborah House Shelter for Street Girls (92704) in Addis Abbaba in Ethiopia. Quoting the SIM website, the project is described as:

“Deborah House is a shelter house that offers these girls a safe place to sleep, Christian love, food, and care—by paying school fees, offering medical care, teaching about HIV and AIDS, and most importantly, teaching them about the love of Christ through Bible studies and compassionate care.

In order to bring more girls off the streets, the Deborah House staff is working towards reintegrating some of the girls into the community. This will be done by reuniting some of the girls with their families, by placing others in foster families, and by other methods.”

If you go to this page (click there) you can view a short video of the girls that have lived at Deborah House.

If someone can tell me how to put a google video on my wordpress blog I can add it here, otherwise you’ll need to go to the site to view it.

Most Saturdays my wonderful in-laws take Kezi for the day and we get a lot of things done that are easier without a toddler tagging along. She loves her days at Granny and Poppa’s place and always comes home happy. This morning Michael dropped her off and took Luci so I had the house to myself for a couple of hours. That’s a pretty rare thing so I took advantage and spread myself out on the floor with all my jewellery findings and handmade beads.

In November I’m taking part in two market events. The first is the Melville Baptist Church (our church) Fair at which I’ll be selling my polymer clay items. The money from all sales at the event go to local chaplaincy so keep November 1st aside if you are in Perth. The second event is November 15th, the next Made On The Left market at the Hyde Park Hotel in North Perth (this time my sales will go to the work of SIM around the world). This will be my first really big event. The only other event I’ve participated in where I’ve sold my wares live is at a Curves market night last year.

I have exactly 9 weeks before the first of these events so I’ve been trying to do as much time snatching as possible and create stock. If I don’t have to empty my Etsy, Wahmania and MadeIt online stores I won’t. 9 weeks seems like a good amount of time but not when I have to balance family life, SIM work, events, travel and a myriad of other things in between.

So, back to today. I think I spent about 4 hours or so in total making things and then taking photos (this time for my own records, not for listing in my stores) and then more time editing the pics and putting them on my flickr page.

I had a really great time today and in total put together 7 necklaces, 1 necklace and bracelet set, 1 bracelet, 7 pairs of earrings, 2 phone charms and 7 bookmarks. I also got to go through my current stock and separate what I think I can sell at the markets in November. Now, if I don’t get to do any more time snatching this week then I won’t be so stressed!

Here’s some shots of today’s results:

Bracelet

Dragonfly Earrings

Purple Pansy Dragonfly Earrings

Inspired by India Earrings

A hoard of Bookmarks

Oceanic Necklace and Bracelet Set

Seashore Necklace

Keyrings (made these the other day)

Anyway, I’m not planning on listing any of these in my stores BUT if you see anything here or on my flickr (where the rest of today’s work is displayed) then contact me and I’ll let you know my planned prices.

By the way, today was the last day for the money from my sales going towards the work of SIM with Pastors in Malawi, I’ll be putting up the project for September and October sometime this week and letting you know the results of the last two months. Thanks for reading my blog and for those who comment, I get a little buzz out of it every time so thank you! : )

Apricot blossom from our backyard

Since my last post both Michael and I have had varying versions of the virus that Keziah had all weekend. The last few days have been hard, I’ve had to dig very deep in order to handle the situation and I really do thank the Lord that Lucinda hasn’t caught either Kezi’s bronchitis or the virus. Amongst the trips to the bathroom, the piles and piles of washing and the sleepless nights Luci has been a very easy baby to have. She has slept peacefully most of the time and even went 6 hours between feeds on Sunday night (hasn’t done that since though).

I have even managed to get working on Lucinda’s felt book as I mentioned in a previous post, pinning down three pages already. Haven’t taken any photos of that yet but I will do later.

Its amazing how sickness sets you back so much. I had grand plans to spend the day at carousel shopping centre on Saturday as well as get working on the invitations to Kezi’s birthday party, our SIM display, my Polyclarific display and more over the weekend. I’ve done none of that, instead I’ve washed Keziah’s quilt and bedding at least twice (before wising up and putting her on a smaller mattress with just a mattress protector), our bedding twice and loads and loads of other washing. Oh the joys! Hopefully we can get back to normal in the coming days, whatever ‘normal’ actually is!

Well, what a weekend this has been. I have had very little sleep although last night was a lot better than the previous two nights. This was related more to Keziah than Lucinda. She has had bronchitis for the last week and then on Friday night around 1.30am she started throwing up! We think that she has a virus on top of the bronchitis and the health line people think that her system would be down a bit due to antibiotics hence making her more vulnerable to viruses. Poor little girl.

Usually I do all the night feeds and shifts and Michael will get up with Kezi (and now Luci) around 6-6.30am and let me sleep for a bit longer but on Friday night/Sat morn he had to take care of Lucinda and her feeds while I took care of a chucking up Kezi!! We were both wrecked by Saturday morning. It was all looking on the up until just after bedtime for Kezi last night when she was sick again so we did what we had done the night before and set her up in the lounge room so I could sleep next to her. Michael would have done that shift except that he was preaching this morning so really did need sleep! It all turned out ok because Keziah slept most of the night, wasn’t sick again and I actually got sleep between feeds.

I feel fully initiated into double parenthood now. Looks like I survived. : )

In between all of this I have managed a tiny bit of time snatching and creativity. I think it keeps me sane. Here’s the results from the last three or four days:

Some bitty booties for Lucinda, she only just fits them though!

Various pendants, beads etc… that I’ve made this week and varnished

Varnished a large group of pendants and beads (ready for an upcoming show - stay tuned!)

I have realised that I have a lot on my plate for the rest of the year. Between my SIM responsibilities (newsletter coming out soon, emails, admin and working on our display for upcoming events), Creativity and my shops (I have 2-3 actual physical market stalls before Christmas), Home life (the usual cleaning, kids stuff, feeding Luci etc etc…, buying presents, arranging Kezi’s birthday party for next month etc…) and church life (I’m yet to get as involved as I’d like, I was either away or pregnant for most of our first year at our new church!), I need to be organised. I’m happy though to be no longer pregnant and able to have a reasonably clear brain again, its good to be busy!

Africa got into our blood after spending just one year there in 2000-2001 so its appropriate that our house reflects this. That year was a turning point for us. We both feel that it was at that point that we found where God wanted us for the long term, working in some capacity with overseas missions, specifically with SIM. Now, close to 10 years since our first association with SIM (April 1999) we are still involved and at an even higher capacity than ever before (Michael is the WA Ministry Director). I think that this is why we still have our African memorabilia out, it was a significant watershed moment for us.

As I’ve slowly been regaining my ability to move freely (don’t worry, I haven’t been lifting anything!) as well as losing my pregnancy brain I have been rearranging things in our new house little by little. We decided to go with an African theme for our lounge space and its coming together slowly, although, due to Ikea being short on the specific furniture items we need to make our space livable, its still in temporary mode! Small parts are complete though like these:

Entry table, complete with a beautiful bunch of flowers sent from our SIM office (I realise that my painting is crooked! There’s a mirror behind the table too that will be on the wall at some point).

The wall hanging that my Mum made for me with the African theme. She designed this herself, amazing isn’t it! (the orange is not as bright as the picture shows!)

Some of my own paintings around the place. (also, not as dark as the photo shows, sometime I’ll take a proper photo of that)

The top of the china cabinet

Oh and baby cards!!

Now we just need to finish off the lounge area after a trip to Ikea sometime this week and things will feel more settled. Its so nice to be able to move around without discomfort!!

As promised in the previous post, here is the project that the sales from July and August will go towards. After asking from direction from above and searching through many projects I’ve settled on this one.

Malawi Church Leaders HIV & AIDS Training (96352)

The link above will give you a lot more information about this project but a quote from the page says:

The church is reaching out to many of the poorest people in Malawi. Church members struggle to put food on the table and only have small offerings to pay the pastors. Despite small economic resources, the churches are pouring themselves out in response to the AIDS crisis which is devastating families and entire villages. These pastors continue to minister in these tough conditions because they love God and their fellow Malawians….

About US $3600 can bring 90 pastors and their wives from all over Malawi to stay at the Bible College in Blantyre for four days. This is only US $10 per person per day for this important time of training, equipping and encouraging. Would you consider giving US $40 to train one pastor? This gift will have an eternal impact and bring a smile to even more faces! Thank you for your partnership to strengthen the church in Malawi!

You can watch a video on the work of HOPE for AIDS in Malawi here.

The links to my online shops are:

Polyclarific on Etsy
Polyclarific on MadeIt
Polyclarific on Wahmania

As promised, here is the tally for the months of May and June in total sales…………..$US341. I blogged about the project that the profits will go to back at the start of May but the project page on the SIM website can be found here.

$US60 will buy one Pastor in Ghana a bike to make it much easier for him to do his work. Instead of having to walk for 4-5 hours (each way) to visit someone, they will be able to cycle.

Thank you to those who purchased from me during the last two months, the Pastors will appreciate their bikes! In total I have enough to buy them NEARLY 6 bikes. I’m $US19 short of the sixth bike.

The project for the months of July and August will be announced shortly in a separate post. In the meantime, here are some of the items that have been translated into bikes (as in, these items have sold for this project).

The money from all my sales is still going to the work of SIM each month. As I’ve mentioned before, the money for the months of May and June goes towards Bikes for Pastors in Ghana, Africa.. With just a couple of weeks left in June I thought I would mention this again.

I fully believe that God is in control of my sales and interestingly I had more sales in May than I have ever had before followed by a total of zero sales in June. The timing of this is amazing as June has been crazily busy with moving house and trying to prepare for our new baby.

The last sale I had was May 30th, we moved June 2nd. Interesting.

The total of sales so far for these two months is $US331.50. If I do sell anything over the next week and a half I have managed to find places for my creations and also the packaging I would need to post them so it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle. Custom orders however won’t be accepted for quite a while.

So, what does $331.50 buy for the Pastors in Ghana? It buys 5 and a half bikes for them!! Wouldn’t it be great to make it to a total of 6 bikes? If you are intending to purchase anything from one of my online shops, now is the time! Just $30US more in sales will complete the aim.

As a tempter, here’s a couple of the items found in my Etsy shop:

This post is actually not about feelings but about actual felt. : ) I couldn’t help myself with the title. In amongst the madness of packing and cleaning for this weekend’s move, I still have time to blog. This is basically because I HAVE to sit down for an hour or two after doing anything due to sore hips etc… I think this is probably a good thing, normally I’d be rushing around like a crazy person getting everything done and instead I feel much less stressed due to these breaks.

So, back to what this post is about. I’ve recently started listing hand stitched felt items in my online stores and today I have added 6 new felt items to my Etsy store. The main reason I did this today was so I can pack these items away into the ‘listed’ box ready for the move as they’ve been sitting here ready to be listed for a week now. After listing them I took a few screen shots of my hand stitched felt section in my Etsy store and below are the shots. Don’t they all look happy and bright together! In the range below you can choose from plain luggage tags, luggage tags with a pocket on the reverse side, brooches and pincushions.

I’m still sending the profits to the work of SIM (Bikes for Pastors this month and next month). So far I’m still at 5 bikes but I’ve had a few sales over the last week so the number is slowly climbing. Praise God!

I have recently had another custom order which is almost completed, this time I was asked to make little beads with sheep in them. What fun! Having a lot of the little sheep cane left over, I decided to make some sheep buttons which will go for sale in my shop as soon as I photograph them properly. For now however, here’s a sneek peek.

Oh, and PS. I have already had enough sales in May to buy 5, yes 5 bikes for the Pastors in Ghana! Isn’t that amazing. God is the only one directing the sales as I have never had this many in such a short time. I have not been promoting myself any differently to usual so I know its not me! Thank you Lord.

I have also been busily hand stitching more embroidered brooches to sell, in fact I sold the one I featured in my earlier post already! Here’s the one I have already listed in my shop: