On February 24th we celebrated our first "Gotcha Day" with Little Bit! We have had such a roller coaster of a year, but I think all of us would agree that there have been more ups than downs. While I'm not sure that would make sense on an actual coaster, for us it's been awesome.
In the last year we have made a lot of changes as we adapted to life together. We've all had multiple bedrooms; trying to find the right layout for life has been harder than we planned. We've also gone through multiple clothing sizes; his growth spurts are happening too often for my comfort. Now we are looking at losing multiple teeth at once! Ack! Whoever didn't warn me about quickly growing little boys is mean!
As we continue settling in, a couple of things have become abundantly clear. First, we are blessed. I don't think either of us imagined that life would play out as it has in the last three years, but through it all we have learned and grown together, and now we have a wonderful son who makes us laugh and teaches us about a love we never would have known without him. Second, life is busy. Not many days go by when we don't fall into bed exhausted. It's a good exhaustion, but it makes thinking of adding a leave-home-and-be-gone-all-day-five-days-a-week job daunting, so we have been looking at alternatives. Finally, I have things to contribute! I have been working for and with several people that were wonderful enough to let me move to Texas and continue working for them, and while it has kept the bills paid, we are really wanting to get the adoption expenses paid off so that we can move on with life. That will only be possible if I can find creative ways to bring in some money.
That brings us to now! This project. My plan is to begin to create customized gifts of various types for sale in my local community and online. Things along the lines of customized cutting boards and etched glass baking dishes. Stuff that people use, but that can be "fancied up" for gift giving, etc. I'm wanting to market to people like realtors, who are already giving gifts to people, but that might be interested in easier personalization to make a bigger impact on their clients. I'm working toward being able to make a number of different things, and I'm sure I haven't even thought of them all yet!
Ultimately, this is a craft-funding project, with eyes on being able to make it work as a business so that we can make some inroads into the mountain that we are working on climbing over.
I've done the math on this, and basically what this fundraiser will be doing for the project is providing capital. I'm trying to raise $1000 because the type of crafting I have done in the past was small-scale. Individual projects for gifting, maybe, or just something I thought was cute and wanted to make that ended up on my wall. None of it required many tools. This is bigger than that. The bulk of the requested funds will go to purchase some equipment that will be needed in order to set this machine in motion, and the remainder will be used to purchase consumables to begin stocking both my portfolio and an online store as a way to share that portfolio. It's more than a bit scary to think that something like a crafting business would bring in enough to actually make a dent in the $35,000+ that we still owe on the adoption, but I figure every little bit will help. And, if we can enjoy what we are doing to earn the money, so much the better.
Thanks so much for taking the time to check out my project. We appreciate all the support we have received and continue to receive. It's been such a learning experience and we are looking forward to what the next year together will bring!
In the last year we have made a lot of changes as we adapted to life together. We've all had multiple bedrooms; trying to find the right layout for life has been harder than we planned. We've also gone through multiple clothing sizes; his growth spurts are happening too often for my comfort. Now we are looking at losing multiple teeth at once! Ack! Whoever didn't warn me about quickly growing little boys is mean!
As we continue settling in, a couple of things have become abundantly clear. First, we are blessed. I don't think either of us imagined that life would play out as it has in the last three years, but through it all we have learned and grown together, and now we have a wonderful son who makes us laugh and teaches us about a love we never would have known without him. Second, life is busy. Not many days go by when we don't fall into bed exhausted. It's a good exhaustion, but it makes thinking of adding a leave-home-and-be-gone-all-day-five-days-a-week job daunting, so we have been looking at alternatives. Finally, I have things to contribute! I have been working for and with several people that were wonderful enough to let me move to Texas and continue working for them, and while it has kept the bills paid, we are really wanting to get the adoption expenses paid off so that we can move on with life. That will only be possible if I can find creative ways to bring in some money.
That brings us to now! This project. My plan is to begin to create customized gifts of various types for sale in my local community and online. Things along the lines of customized cutting boards and etched glass baking dishes. Stuff that people use, but that can be "fancied up" for gift giving, etc. I'm wanting to market to people like realtors, who are already giving gifts to people, but that might be interested in easier personalization to make a bigger impact on their clients. I'm working toward being able to make a number of different things, and I'm sure I haven't even thought of them all yet!
Ultimately, this is a craft-funding project, with eyes on being able to make it work as a business so that we can make some inroads into the mountain that we are working on climbing over.
I've done the math on this, and basically what this fundraiser will be doing for the project is providing capital. I'm trying to raise $1000 because the type of crafting I have done in the past was small-scale. Individual projects for gifting, maybe, or just something I thought was cute and wanted to make that ended up on my wall. None of it required many tools. This is bigger than that. The bulk of the requested funds will go to purchase some equipment that will be needed in order to set this machine in motion, and the remainder will be used to purchase consumables to begin stocking both my portfolio and an online store as a way to share that portfolio. It's more than a bit scary to think that something like a crafting business would bring in enough to actually make a dent in the $35,000+ that we still owe on the adoption, but I figure every little bit will help. And, if we can enjoy what we are doing to earn the money, so much the better.
Thanks so much for taking the time to check out my project. We appreciate all the support we have received and continue to receive. It's been such a learning experience and we are looking forward to what the next year together will bring!