Mookie's Helping, Too

I discovered that Brady's Smile will send get well posters along with their "comfort bags". The program is called Crayons n' Care, and they encourage kids of all ages to make a mini-poster for children in the ICU. (I don't believe these actually go with the blankets for babies in the NICU, but it's a question I will ask.)

As I make blankets in lieu of a gift, I'm thinking of asking the birthday boy/girl to make a mini-poster to send along with the blanket. Depending on the child's age and maturity level, I think it will help the child to connect a bit with the blanket and donation. What do you think?

I was hoping Mookie would color in the outlined letters (hah!), but when she wasn't interested in that, I just let her doodle, then gave her some stickers and let her go to town.

And to town she went! And back again! The girl loves her stickers. :o) (I didn't realize that sticker-love was a genetically inherited trait, but apparently it is!)

That's it for us - I'm hoping to get a few done this weekend...now, only if my 2 will cooperate and leave me to my sewing...

Hope you have a great weekend!

For 100 Babies

A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with my friend, Katy, about how to bind a blanket. See, she had a friend who was turning 30, and her friend asked that instead of giving her gifts, she wanted everyone to make a blanket for Project Linus, which gives blankets to babies that need them. Her friend wanted 30 blankets for her birthday. Awesome idea, isn't it? I mentioned to her that I help some ladies from my church make little quilts for a couple of local NICU units, and explained how we make them. We finished our conversation, and went about our way.

Over the course of the past few weeks, though, the notion of giving blankets instead of presents has been stirring in my brain (which has vast amounts of open space right now). I've given blankets to Brady's Smile before, and meet monthly at church to make 45 blankets for the local babies, so it's nothing new to me, really, but I really feel like I need to do something more. Also, I know of quite a few littles having birthdays over the next few weeks, and they all have PLENTY of toys. Pah-Len-Ty.

So rather than give them a gift and add to their toy stash, I've come up with a plan. My plan is to personally donate 100 baby blankets over the course of the next year. I'm not going to include the ones I make at church because that would be cheating. :o) If I did that, I would meet my goal in just a few months! And I want it to mean something more to me. I need it to be a real challenge. (And it's not like I don't have enough crafting challenges on my dining room table already!)

And I'm going to start my clock ticking from August 8th. My sweet friend, Megan, has an adorable little boy who turned 2 on August 8th, and I'm going to be sending a blanket in Peabody's name to either Brady's Smile or Project Linus. And my next door neighbor's two sons are having a birthday party tomorrow. I'm going to give each of them a small gift, and give their mom a note saying that I'll be donating a blanket for each of them.

I'm not going to do anything complicated...believe you me, I've got complicated and over-committed coming out my eardrums right now! For now, I'm just going to make fleece bow-tie blankets like I made for Sprout. And I'm going to figure out a way to keep track of how many I've donated right here on my blog. Somehow. Any ideas?

Anyone want to play along? After these birthdays, there's Christmas. And Valentine's Day. And Easter. And Mother's Day and Father's Day and July 4th. :o) I know I can donate 100. Can you?