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Fabric with Lots of Love - Lilahroo's

3/12/2014

I have the wonderful opportunity to help out another great organization with some fabric to continue their mission. This time it is for Lilahroo's! Monica makes these precious, cozy, comfy and just wonderful blankets for children fighting medical challenges.

Do we have one? No - but my, oh my, you can just see from her photos and stories of children that have received one just how comfy they are! As someone who has made blankets for years, these are great quality, with wonderful fabrics. Cozy flannel on top and super soft minky on the back...perfect blanket ingredients!

Here is Autumn with her gown and Lilahroo while at her clinic appointment! Doesn't she look super cozy there?!

There website to learn more about what they do, who they are, how to support and even all the stories from families that have received a blanket from Lilahroo's is:

http://www.lilahroos.com/

They are also on Facebook at:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lilahroos/621064347914209

So since the kiddos and I are getting a lot closer to moving time and we've been holding onto some of these fabrics for a while now, without any requests to use them for, here are the cozy flannels we had to send Monica's way and even a minky fabric too:

They will be on their way shortly - as in probably tomorrow's mail!!
Can't wait to see what little ones get wrapped up in a cozy blankie made from these fabrics.

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CureFest 2013

11/2/2013

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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.

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Busy Buddy by Bee Brave

8/18/2013

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This amazing tray with a removable pillow that also becomes an amazing storage keeper is called a Busy Buddy - the amazing mother, daughter team behind it is called Bee Brave!

Our son David, was a recipient of a Busy Buddy - he is autistic (you can read back through the blogs and find his full story) and we spend two hours in the car every trip to therapy, every appointment, every specialist and every testing...which this summer was three days a week...for him, it is boring and frankly he hates it!

I cannot tell you how much he LOVES this - he can use it at home on his lap to color (we don't have much table space, and he can take it away from the girls), he uses it in the car, he can hide his most treasured possessions inside the pouch for the pillow (it has a zipper)...and well it worked great for mommy when I was laid up in bed and I was able to write out the new requests for gowns even.

David is pretty picky about what he likes - what child isn't right?! I had just made him a special little bean bag seat/ottoman thing...lol. And this was the fabric he picked out for it. The amazing part of his Busy Buddy, was I was able to send in this fabric and her mother made the pillow with it! David was so excited to see his "moo cows," "piggie" and tractor on the fabric.

Melissa went one step farther and matched the painting on the tray to the fabric as well! Once again - he was in HEAVEN! It was so great to see his face light up when it arrived in the mail and it was perfect timing as we had therapy the next day! But he wanted to take it outside to play with his trucks in the sandbox instead...lol.

So we compromised - he is David with his Busy Buddy!

He was allowed to take it outside with him, but it had to stay with mommy, I wasn't about to have sand start coming out the zipper pocket...lol.

He doesn't always smile, but he wanted to say "mooooo" as his picture was being taken. The boy loves cows, what can I say? He wants to be a cowboy when he grows up.

When I sent in David's fabric for his Busy Buddy we also went a couple steps farther and created a wonderful bond and work relationship on the Gracie's Gowns end with Bee Brave.

We sent all this amazing fabric over to Bee Brave to help make the pillows for other children, teens and adults that end up being on their sponsorship list!

Of course, it is mostly all scraps from gowns that have been made for children by Gracie's Gowns. Some of our gowns we have lots left over, and this is the case with these fabrics, but we also sent lots of smaller pieces to use as well for their mini stress relievers!

We filled up a diaper box of fabric and mailed it out to Melissa and her mom and something even more amazing is stemming from this too!

We are participating in CureFest 2013 in Washington D.C. - it is an event sponsored by The Truth 365 to bring awareness and support for Pediatric Cancer.

The event is on September 1st, 2013 and all of the participating organizations, work with children who have cancer, fund pediatric cancer research, promote awareness, etc.

Bee Brave - is sending us 50 mini stress relievers for our goodie bags to distribute throughout the time of the event! We wanted to help promote other organizations that are small like us, but work with children who have cancer, and just chronically ill children as well and let them not only put informational materials in our bags, but include a little item too!

Melissa sent me this picture of some of the ones heading our way here soon! All I can think of when I see this is the precious kiddos that received gowns from the same fabrics and it makes me tear up, knowing they have inspired something so amazing in my own heart and really and truly are the heartbeat that keeps Gracie's Gowns running!

If your organization isn't attending CureFest and would like to include an item and informational materials in our goodie bags, we are putting together 50 bags. The items need to be at my house no later than the 29th of August so I can get them put in the bags.

Direct sales companies are allowed to include an item, but I am only taking one representative per company - and you must include a sample item with your information. Please contact me BEFORE sending anything, just to make sure I don't have another representative already - and that I need to keep my eye out for a package - same with any organization.

To learn more about Bee Brave you can visit their
Facebook Page at (stop by and send them some love, Gracie's Gowns style of course):
https://www.facebook.com/beebrave2013

And their website is:
http://www.beebrave.org

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Selvage, Hope and Glee

8/1/2013

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I am usually not one to look at the selvages on fabrics, especially when cutting gowns.

But this fabric in particular caught my eye because it was different, I wasn't sure really what it was suppose to be, so I looked at the selvage and first saw the "Quilt of Dreams" and thought that was unique in itself, read a little farther down the selvage and saw that the fabric was made for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

That was pretty amazing - how neat is it to make a gown for a child battling illness and fighting for their life with fabric that a portion of the sales were given to one of the most spectacular children's hospitals in the United States and the world?!

I have seen fabric before that benefits ConKerr Cancer, Autism Speaks and a couple other big organizations I can't think of the names right now, but it is always so exciting to pick up fabrics to use for special projects, such as our hospital gowns, and know that another group is benefiting from the proceeds to help THOUSANDS of children.

Well from the seamstress side of it - especially making these hospital gowns for each child, it was humbling...it was rewarding in some ways, but even more so it made this particular gown so much more meaningful and special.

The fabric itself is film strips, I wasn't sure that this fabric would ever work for a hospital gown, but then I received a gown requests for a teen girl who loves the T.V. Show "Glee." There was now potential for this fabric to be used for a gown.

When I read more into the gown request, it was like all the pieces of a puzzle were being put together - this fabric was meant for this request...it was meant for Hope

Hope is 16 years old and has been diagnosed with Severe Aplastic Anemia and also had a bone marrow transplant in 2012. She was born with Spina Bifida and hydrocephalus. She has inspired hope in her family and those that know her.

Now it was time to Gleek up the gown for Hope - and this is what we did to create Hope a gown that is just as special as she is.

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Fabric with Lots of Love - Lilahroo's

CureFest 2013

Busy Buddy by Bee Brave

Selvage, Hope and Glee

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