International Sanctuary - aw, shucks.

I was peeking in on Tori's blog the other day and saw that she'd helped International Sanctuary get their new website up and running. Which of course I had to check out - because I love the whole "purchase with purpose" concept that they have.

If you've been a long time reader of mine, you'll know that I had lunch with the founders of International Sanctuary a while ago whose mission is:

"iSanctuary is a new and growing non-profit organization that was formed to develop social enterprises for survivors of commercial sexual exploitation.

Currently we are training 40 rescued girls, from the ages of 13 to 18 in Mumbai India, in the skill of jewelry making. Once the girls are trained, their products are brought to the US and UK to be sold to fund their futures."Anyhow, I figured, even though I would be seeing them soon at an event I am hosting for MOPS - a mini-boutique in December, that I needed to make a little purchase in support of them. For a while I've been eyeing their "Ring of Fire" bracelet - it's kind of a signature piece for them and when I have noticed it on other women it's something I immediately recognize as an International Sanctuary piece. So I dropped one of those into my cart. Then I went over to the necklaces page and saw something that was so sweet! They have a necklace named the Liberty Necklace and is fashioned after a design that I made with Stephanie that day last December. We had such a fun time talking about clustering colors and shapes in the variety that would create a rich look... and I'd made some earrings and a necklace for her and off to our lunch we went. I knew we'd had fun together, but I'd never dreamed that they'd use my design and name it after our work-session. What an honor.
I bought one. And wore it proudly yesterday. I may need to buy a few more as gifts. At a mere $20, they are a lot of fun to pick up for thoughtful gifts this winter. (and they're cute!)

Fall Day in LA

I love driving through Hancock Park in each season. Today I got a great dose of autumn while driving down Rossmore from Hollywood. I love that I managed (while driving) to catch both autumn leaves and palm trees. Perfect.

Our Halloween

(Jars made into jack-o-lanterns, as taught by Dollar Store Crafts)

now that I am back into the zone of little sleep, combined with a baby who needs to attach to mama by being held all the time - um, posting? well, suffice it to say that I am apologizing ahead of time for any typos or stupid things posted. I'm having a hard time remembering to even eat these days.
that said... our Halloween rocked and I have to share a FEW pics! The kids were spoiled this year - the party we attended for trick or treating around the corner - no joke - included a go-cart chauffeur that took the kids to pre-planned houses for trick or treating. They rode around - 18 kids - for 2 hours in these adorable cars and had the best time ever while we walked along and met them at each house. The host promised a ride for the parents next year, but it was such a nice night... we didn't mind at all!AJ slept through most of the day and I made light of my intense amount of baby gear by re-donning my "superMom" garb, complete with crocs and the Design Director's cape. (prepared for everything)
Ze Artiste decided last week that he wanted to be CELERY - not Troy from HSM as he'd been asking for the past few months. I was delighted.... and scrambled to put this costume together - with help from my craft mafia buddy Tif again... and we had one happy stalk of celery. J decided that the celery needed a farmer and AJ had a few cute costumes to choose from, so he was a tiger for one party and a frog for the one the day before. Not sure what he thought of it, but we thought he was cute!

NEW baby

You knew I couldn't resist embellishing all of AJ's onesies. Too bad
it's got to be covered up by other layers! (though
you won't catch me complaining about cool weather). ... More to come...

I'm wearing slings again.

Can I tell you how much I missed being able to wear someone in a sling? Last night, AJ was in this new sling as my accessory with a black dress to a little event that J and I went to. Talk about the best accessory ever. (I wasn't planning on christening two new slings for him, but one MUST have the right accessory for the right occasion, eh?) Today's trip to a pumpkin patch also begged for the black and white polka dots. (It helps that I have an entire stock of baby slings here to choose from. Kind of the same issue I have when I can't find a skirt to wear.)

This is from our annual trip to the Mr. Bones Pumpkin Patch in Beverly Hills, which is the closest great patch to us, but always makes us laugh with the star sightings and paparazzi lined up outside. This year, instead of being scolded to stay across the street, the paparazzi were allowed inside the patch, but were confined to a pen. It was hysterical to see. They looked like a petting zoo of a bunch of grouchy sleazy guys. And no, they were in no way interested in us. =)

and, one for the road.

Though she looks angelic here, the design director wasn't the most chipper attendee today.

At least we got a few good pics.

Ice Cream, You scream

I told you I'd post a pic of the awesome tee Christy made for Mimi for her birthday.
There is a lot more work put into this than it looks. nicely done, Christy! (also, she made a point to use all scraps from my giveaway last April, that Mimi would recognize as "momma's skirt favrics")

A New Muse

You know you wanted to ask what homemade items AJ was put in today...
Well, I couldn't resist putting him in a tie when I knew Christy was coming over to take pics.

But then she brought the CUTEST gifts for the kids, (I still have to post her amazing bday gifts for Mimi. best part is that I taught her this applique trick and she's totally bypassed me with some of her complexity - I'll show you Mimi's shirt later, when we get a good pic) and we had to change his clothes again. (which he loves)Z was quite fond of his as well.

oh, and don't forget the ubiquitious knitted blankets that all my children must have... J's mom knitted this great red one for AJ - which is perfect, since I've decorated his crib with my latest fave color combo of red and brown.

AJ's story - as told to Designing Moms - Part 1

I've been asked to tell our story about AJ for another blog I write for called Designing Moms.
Here is the post that went up yesterday as our first installment.

by Designing Mom Liberty

I'm not sure that 10 years ago (or maybe even 4 years ago) that I would have imagined "foster mom" as one of my titles. The 2 words together tend to bring up a lot of negative feelings, fears and connotations for so many people. 4 years ago I was pregnant with my 2nd child - who was 18months younger than my first. The next season was tough. Two kids really close together nearly did me in! I've always been the person that would be described as: "CREATIVE, SPONTANEOUS, FREE-SPIRITED... just a feeding schedule alone was so far beyond the type of structure (i.e. none) that I was used to for my days. Even in my corporate life as a textile designer I got to work thousands of miles from my bosses, make my own time, work from home or the office and generally make my own decisions. Having not one, but two demanding little bosses who were highly regimented, needed life to be scheduled, and screamed at me when they didn't like my efforts was really a stretch for me. And yet, deep down in my heart, I didn't think we were done having kids yet. I'd always wanted to adopt, I've cried at every foster or adopt commercial that came on tv - I would secretly steal glances at obviously adoptive families with the longing to be them.... the longing to do something about the fact that thousands of kids in the world need good parents.

It wasn't until about a year ago that my husband and I started putting the words into action. We were really starting to imagine that once our younger (a challenging toddler - he's stretched the Terrible Twos out over 2.5 years) child was about 3.5 - maybe we could do this? A friend of mine started to talk about adopting through the foster care system. This seemed so frightening to me... I'm not sure what scared me.... probably a LOT of things.


My friend, Becky - had a son biologically and couldn't conceive again... Well, she and her husband started attending some orientation classes to work at getting a child through the foster care system. They were IMMEDIATELY contacted about a little boy who had a sister on the way. Would they take him and wait for her? YES!!!! So we all waited with bated breath and then, there he was! Perfect, lovely, 2.5 years old. He and his new big brother were fast friends and this family was rushed through the process so they could receive baby girl a few months later. A few years later now, Becky has 4 children and her joy and excitement over this process, the agency they used and their new children set me over the edge. "Okay, let's get this ball rolling!"

This year in February, we attended our first orientation with Koinonia Foster Homes. We decided to not rush the process, nor rush our son out of the proverbial cradle - dragging out our process for the past 10 months, knowing that he needed to be the baby for a while and that the right timing would show itself. (A point to note, though: The process HAD to take less than a year or we'd have to start repeating classes for certification) I'm not sure what I expected, but the more classes I went to, the more excited I got about it. I would look around a room of 50 couples all there with the same goals and be amazed at the heart for children. There were families of all walks of life, all races, all mixes, all ages and occupations - but our agency seems to attract people that are simply put - awesome. It didn't feel so weird when we looked around a room and felt like a lot of these people were worth getting to know... we now have a number of foster families that we are getting close to that we are walking this through together (I've heard this is not common at other agencies).


About a month ago we realized we were REALLY close to getting finished with this process. One evening in a parenting class (which was, incidentally, really fun and great to use on our bio kids!), a social worker that we knew interrupted the class to ask our teacher a question. She held up a paper with a few lines, not many, of text on them and asked, "is this really all the families that we have that can accept kids now? I've just got a call and I need to find a placement immediately!" An audible gasp in the room...wow...(just a quick fact... THOUSANDS of children every month are processed into foster care every month in Los Angeles alone. Many of these are adoptable. Most kids who live their lives as system foster kids have a low success rate in life). That night was really intense for me... to see this huge need and a social worker upset that there simply aren't enough homes to take them.

At this point, I need to describe what we've signed up for. My husband and I have enrolled ourselves as what is called a "concurrent planning family" - which essentially means that we are willing to do foster care as a road to adopting. We enter into this understanding that there is the chance that a suitable family member for this child may be found to take care of them and that placing a child with flesh and blood (if it's a suitable and loving home) is always better than giving the baby to complete strangers. We were able to give the social worker a number on a scale as to how much risk we thought we could handle, as well as the ages we thought we could do. At this point, they know that we really WANT to adopt, but are willing to take the risk to love a baby that may end up with family between now and adoption - which can take between 12-24 months on the average.


Fast forward: This week, we had our home study and inspection which were not nearly as scary as I'd built them up to be. We secured all dangerous items in our house in a set of high school lockers that we painted red and stuck into the laundry room... the questions asked of us were personal and pertinent, handled delicately by a great interviewer. As our social worker (I'll call her Jane) hit save on the final draft of our home study, our inspection complete, she closed her laptop and said, "I've been asked to talk to you about a 2 month old baby boy" WOAH. My husband looked at me. We both shook in shock. Are you serious? This fast? Jane began to describe how we still needed to get all our paperwork approved by the final people who give the official STAMP that says we're good to go, she mentioned that we should go meet this baby who was staying with another family from within our agency who does temporary foster care.


So this week, we met baby AJ. He is 3.5 months old. He's calm, beautiful, temperate and sweet. He gave a smile to my husband within 2 minutes of seeing him. We called the agency while we were still at the temporary foster mom's house. "YES PLEASE!" we said. They asked us to visit him as often as possible over the next few days so that as our paperwork gets finalized and they can switch him to our home, that we will be familiar people to him. (this should hopefully happen this week) Today I watched him all day long. I took him to my niece's birthday party, where my family fell in love with him too. This week, we hope to learn that AJ is ours for the time being and that we get to bring him home into our lives.

We have so much joy and excitement in our hearts, it's simply inexplicable to look at this little beautiful human being and to imagine - "he might be ours! we get to know and love him and give him a chance at a full life as long as he is with us!"

Our journey has only just begun, but we are thrilled to share it with AJ and thrilled to share it with you.

Whatcha think?

I've been really wanting to get back into purses, but to find a way to make them a little more affordable and accessible to people to buy.

What do you think of this REVERSIBLE number? Ain't it the cutest? (price $39)

Do you think I should have my seamstress make a few up? My current thoughts now are that I will list these two on etsy and see the interest - they could also be made in most of the fabrics that I have on hand, too...

any thoughts?

Nesting - sewing, really

What do you do when you are waiting for a baby to arrive? You nest.

Which is exactly what I have been doing. Organizing, sewing - trying to get through my to-do pile of things to sew, really...

here are some of the projects I've done recently for some lucky kiddos... (i.e. they're all custom orders for people)

PS - apparently, you also BLOG while nesting. I'm trying to get a few posts done tonight. We get AJ tomorrow!