Blog Archives

Coming in 2014 - Charity Freckle Raffle

11/26/2013

This coming summer Gracie's Gowns will be hosting a charity raffle. The raffle items will consist of our Freckles made in fabrics that represent other charities.

The ticket proceeds will be split between Gracie's Gowns and the charity each Freckle represents. There are 15 charities we will be representing through this raffle this coming year.

For example - when you purchase your ticket(s), you specify which charity's bucket you want it to be put in towards winning that specific Freckle. The cost of the ticket ($2.00) will be split 50/50 with that charity, we will keep $1.00 the charity will get the other.

So at the end of the raffle, we will be making donations to the charities based on the number of tickets that were put in that charities bucket.

Alex's Lemonade Stand
Cakes Against Cancer
Make-A-Wish Foundation
Tiny Superheroes

Children's Miracle Network
Girl Power 2 Cure
Nellie's Catwalk for Kids
Still deciding on another Children's Heart Organization

Autism Speaks
Mended Little Hearts
Ronald McDonald House Charities
Capes for Heroes
Breast Cancer Awareness - still deciding the organization

The Grace Oughton Cancer Foundation
ASK Childhood Cancer Foundation

For those who haven't ventured our website a lot or are new to Gracie's Gowns. This is what our Freckles look like in general and how they will look for this raffle.

We may embroider the charity's name across the stomach, like we do with the names of children, but that is still up in discussion right now.

I will have more details to come once we are closer to event time, but I wanted to share the fabrics and charities while I was cleaning and organizing the sewing area in my kitchen.

We are always open to suggestions of charities for the upcoming years! So if you have one that you'd like to see made into a Freckles, please let us know. This will be something I look forward to doing every summer and a way Gracie's Gowns can give back to the organizations that also help the families that we have made hospital gowns for.

1 Comment

Some more Thirty-One Raffle Winners

11/26/2013

0 Comments

Before the Thanksgiving holiday is upon us, the kids are out of school and the potential of bad weather in our area hits us - I want to post the rest of the winners up through today's raffle winner.
I hate being behind on posting things, so trying to stay caught up while I can.

Thanksgiving and Black Friday we have some really awesome items to give away - so if you haven't purchased your ticket yet, we still have some and you can get your ticket through our website on the events page.

Thank you so much to everyone who has purchased tickets, shared our raffle and just supported Gracie's Gowns over the last 20 months! We would have never been where we are today without you!

Congratulations to all our winners so far and good luck to everyone else over the last few days of our raffle!!

0 Comments

More Thirty-One Raffle Winners

11/23/2013

0 Comments

Here are more of our Thirty-One Winners to date for those who might have missed the daily postings and want to catch up.
We still have another week and some of drawings to do - congrats to all our past winners and good luck to everyone else waiting to see if they win an item.

0 Comments

Thirty-One Raffle is Underway

11/9/2013

0 Comments

Our Thirty-One Raffle has officially been started and we are nine days into giving away items!!

We still have some tickets left to sell and will be selling them through the 15th of the month. So get your tickets soon so you can win one of the 22 items that are left!

www.graciesgowns.org/events.html

And then click on the "Add to Cart" button or mail your payment - the instructions are there for that as well.

Here are the first nine winners!

Really Day Six - I just didn't have my brain working right!

Congratulations to ALL of our winners so far!!
And THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to everyone who has purchased tickets!

Gracie's Gowns

0 Comments

Gracie's Gowns Goes to Guatemala

11/5/2013

0 Comments

A very awesome family that I have know since I was a junior volunteer at Mary Washington Hospital is doing something more than amazing, more than just missions. They are providing a home to orphans in Zapaca, Guatemala. Why do I call it a home and not an orphanage? Simply because the Holt and Monk families care for these children, just as if they were one of their own. Each of these precious children have become a part of their family. At Safe Haven, they will be raising and nurturing the children both physically and spiritually. More than likely this will be the first real family and home these children experience.

So how is Gracie's Gowns playing a part in this mission?
Safe Haven Village is a part of Hope of Life International who also provides medical care to these children in Guatemala. They have a clinic and hospital, but they do not have any gowns right now.
When the families travel to Zapaca for Thanksgiving, we will be sending 30 gowns with them. When they officially move from here in Virginia to Guatemala and open Safe Haven, I pray to have more to send with them. Here are the gowns that we are sending with them right now.

We are also sending some items that they need for Safe Haven and I have included a list that was updated this morning, for anyone that might want to help. We will be taking these items to them within the next couple of weeks - so that is the timeline for right now, or before December 15th, 2013 so they can be taken with them when they move in January.

Items needed:

12 Twin Quilts - Solid Colors Only
11 Twin Cotton Sheet Sets - White or Solid Colors Only
12 Pillows - New
Animal Parade Children's Chewable Multi-Vitamins
Probiotics
Children's Dye-Free Motrin & Tylenol
Spanish/English Story Books
Spanish Bible Story DVDs
Boys & Girls Dress Up Clothes
Batteries - AA & AAA

If you'd like to help you're more than welcome to contact us and we can get it to the Holt or Monk Families before either of their trips.

I have included links for both Facebook and websites for Safe Haven Village and Hope of Life International. Please keep both families in your prayers as they start to make the final transitions into moving and opening Safe Haven, start taking in these precious children and really dive into this new chapter of their lives.

Facebook Page for Safe Haven Village: https://www.facebook.com/SafeHavenVillage
Website for Safe Haven Village: http://safehavenvillage.org

Facebook Page for Hope of Life International:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Esperanza-de-Vida-Hope-of-Life-International/177842535205
Website for Hope of Life International:
http://www.hopeoflifeintl.org

0 Comments

Gracie's Gowns Special Project for Maggie's Sticker Box

11/2/2013

1 Comment

Gracie's Gowns made the very first personalized gown in April of 2013. It was given to a precious little princess in Ohio named Maggie.

She was diagnosed with a Wilm's Tumor and has been through many surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation therapy and many other therapies and treatments as well. We met Maggie's family through a marriage conference event and have just made her family since then a part of our own family.

Maggie being the little princess and fashionita she is would not settle for less then princess level care and fun while in the hospital. She has been known to wear tutus with her hospital gown, butterfly wings, crowns, big flowers on headbands and so much more. More recently they pharmacy started putting stickers on her chemo to make it "princess perfect" and now because of Maggie the pharmacy wants to do it for ALL the children on the hematology/oncology unit.

That being said - Maggie now has a mission called Maggie's Sticker Box and of course we want to help her out in a big way! So we've started to collect stickers in a large box to be the start of Maggie's Sticker Box. So if you have any stickers for boys of girls, seasonal or just for fun, characters or just cute animals send them our way and we will include them in our box.

Awesome right?! There is nothing more exciting to me than children helping children get through the toughest and hardest moments of their lives. And what a simple, but meaningful mission Maggie has! So below is our box that we are going to fill up with everyone's help and the start of our sticker collection drive for Maggie's Sticker Box!

Stickers can be mailed to:
Gracie's Gowns
159 Ordinary Road
Mineral, VA 23117

The hospital they will be used at is Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio - they will be used on the hematology/oncology unit! We'd love to have our box filled and mailed by Christmas to Maggie and her family so they can be used over the holiday season - when of course besides birthdays is the worst time to ever be in the hospital!

1 Comment

CureFest 2013

11/2/2013

0 Comments

On September 1st, 2013 - Gracie's Gowns participated in CureFest for Childhood Cancer on the National Mall in Washington D.C. with 52 other organizations. We banded together for the day and there on out to advocate for pediatric cancer awareness, research, treatments and cures.
The event was co-hosted by Journey 4 A Cure and theTruth365 - both have done amazing things for children battling and surviving cancer. They not only bring awareness and research funding, but they get to you on a personal level - they tell each child's story, I'm sorry I need to rephrase that - they have each child tell THEIR story, each family share their experience in ALL aspects of the cancer world, the successes and even more heartbreaking, the losses. They show the real statistics of the pediatric cancer world and if you read each of them...it will change your life forever.

At CureFest they had several speakers - parents, siblings, organization representatives...but the ones that shook you the most were the children.

Gabriella was one of those children - her speech had you laughing at one minutes, inspired throughout and in tears over the reality of what cancer does to children. Her speech was beyond motivational - there was no way you could hear her give "the cold hard facts" without making it your mission to do something to make a difference.

I am posting her here, because this past weekend, Gabriella lost her battle very suddenly to a brain tumor. She was diagnosed in November of 2012 and passed away October 26, 2013. She made the last year of her life a mission, a legacy even...to show Virginia and the world they HAVE to do something to improve the lives of children battling cancer, to "give them their childhood" to not only treat, but cure the cancers and in a way that doesn't rob them of the life they deserve. She raised funding for the Make-A-Wish foundation after she was granted the wish to go to Paris, France with her family - she knew that other children deserved the chance to have that one lasting memory with their families. She helped raise over $250,000 for Make-A-Wish in just one campaign.

Gabriella - know that you are deeply missed, but never forgotten! You have impacted and changed so many lives that can only be counted by God. Your parents will continue your work, those that are touched by you have been inspired to do the same as well. We may never do it as great as you did, but we will always try our hardest.

Throughout the day we gave away 50 goodie bags to those that stopped by our table - here is a collage of the items that were included. Knowing we were headed to this event, simply because it was local enough to us to do so, I invited other organizations and businesses to contribute to our bags and help spread the word about who they are and what they do.

Healing Helpers participated with their Heart Key Chains that they also embroidered a Yellow Ribbon on.

Socks4Surgery participated with their information and magnets.

Pink Door Fabrics sent some quilting bundles of fabric - Chelsea and Charlie have been amazing with donating and letting me purchase fabric at a lesser cost for gowns.

Bee Brave sent their mini stress relievers - which if you remember from our blog on them, they were made from scraps of fabric from our gowns.

We of course included our bracelets and information.

Hollie is a Thirty-One Consultant and contributed her information and nail files from Thirty-One Gifts, she also contributed our raffle item for the day too!

The Hensons contributed their information about Zeal for Life (will update this with their website, once I have it again, it is not with me right now).

Tricia contributed her Pediatric Cancer Awareness bows! One of which was given to Gabriella when we met her. She wanted it so bad and decided it looked great on her dress for the day!

THANK YOU to everyone who contributed to our bags! I know each item was well received!

One of the best moments was meeting The Beltran family! We had been working on these freckles for his siblings and when I found out that they were going to be at CureFest, I just knew I had to get them done.

Dominic was a local little guy that passed away from cancer - he loved superman so the fabric was made with superman and each one had a different color for the eyes, arms, legs and stomach and then we embroidered his name in gold.

This is the page they created for Dominic on Facebook and they are continuing their efforts for pediatric cancer research, awareness and advocacy!

https://www.facebook.com/Staystrong4dom

Here are the rest of our photos from CureFest for those who want to see some of them. I hope you enjoy them and check out all the amazing pages and organizations we've posted on the blog.

0 Comments

Harley the Healing Helper Hippo Visit

11/2/2013

0 Comments

So while I am on the Healing Helper mindset - Harley came for a visit to Gracie's Gowns while on the search for his family!

We had such a great time with him in September (yes, that's right September and I am just now getting to blog on it) and he got to go by the rebuilding of the one elementary school from the earthquake in 2011 that rattled the whole east coast (for those that don't remember we live 4 miles from the epicenter of that earthquake), see a nuclear power plant (which is also right in our backyard essentially), visit the battlefield central of the Civil War and even Washington D.C. while he was here too!

One of the last days he was here was spent at CureFest (which will be up next for blogging, but that is when we went to Washington D.C). So here are some picture from his stay with us!

This was one taken up at CureFest - he was also trying on one of the Healing Helper gowns that we had made...silly hippo!

I have more pictures, but I am saving them for the CureFest blog from when we were in Washington D.C.

To sign your family up to take part in the fun of Harley's Adventures follow the link below. Lani-lee and Michael have also created Harley his own Facebook page too, so make sure to stop by there as well - they have this awesome interactive map they are using as well to track his adventure in finding his family!

Sign-Up Page: http://www.healinghelpers147.com/harley
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/HarleytheHealingHelper

0 Comments

Healing Helpers: Comfort, Education and Friendship

11/2/2013

0 Comments

I have been wanting to spotlight Healing Helpers for a long time now...but as is with life, it gets in the way and well I am finally at the library, without kiddos and can sit down and write out a couple of blogs...so I am starting with them before it closes today.

On a personal level and a professional level I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE...did I mention LOVE? Healing Helpers! Lani-Lee and Michael and all their precious children have become so near and dear to me over the last year and some it isn't funny.

The idea of using stuffed animals, which ever child has at least one they MUST drag with them everywhere they go, or at least have for naps and bedtime and turning them into a teaching tool for special needs and medically complex children is fantastic! They are practical, functional and beyond all else really help show your child (when and how they can understand) what they have been through in life. This is my son and his Healing Helper piggie (that he calls Piggie or Oinker depending on his mood I suppose). David was the first kiddo to receive one with an Autism heart - because that is his diagnosis and what he battles everyday, he has had surgery and leg braces, but this is what mattered most to me - his heart...the soul of who he is. His diagnosis does not define him, rather he defines it and it helps make him the special little-big man that he is! David loves his piggie and enjoys showing the heart off to others, showing his name and the Thomas the Train pouch inside it (he loves Thomas the Train too) and just snuggling with it at night. It has become his friend when he is hurt or we have to go to specialist we haven't been too before.

So that was on the personal level - oh plus they are so awesome to talk to on the phone and seriously spent HOURS of time with me on the phone when things went all crazy in July here with Gracie's Gowns. They were my rock, they really helped get me through that week at times!

Now professionally - we have teamed up with Healing Helpers in making smaller "animal sized" hospital gowns. These are ordered through Healing Helpers when someone orders one or just orders the gown if they already have one. This was the first Healing Helpers gown and of course was made for precious Annabelle when she had her most recent open heart surgery. It matched the gown that we made for Annabelle to wear. Since then we have made some others - and have a couple more to make as well. So I am just going to share some of the picture that they've posted of the gowns with and without their Healing Helpers.

To learn more about Healing Helpers or to even inquire and place an order for one, please visit their links below:

Website: http://www.healinghelpers147.com
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/healinghelpers
Etsy Shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/healinghelpers

They also accept donations of materials, like new or new stuffed animals and monetary donations as well. They have a sponsorship program too and are looking to do so many more great things in the future with Healing Helpers!
So stop by and see how you can help them out too! That is how I first was connected with them was through donating stuffed animals and fabric scraps from gowns and other projects to be used for their pouches!

0 Comments

Archives

Categories