Starbucks

I've been so crazy busy lately! I picked writing back up, am trying to get short stories published (mostly for the $200 each payments) and am trying to get a novel published this summer (to finally fulfill that dream). I'm also working on a brand new novel.

I'm also working hard at my organization. The store isn't doing too badly - I've now made back all of my initial put in cost, and am just waiting for more funding to launch my charity - which hopefully I'll be doing in less than two weeks on June 1st.

I also managed to LET GO of so much stuff I never could before. Our attic is practically empty. I reduced our baby things down to a single tote (labelled as Our Baby Hopes and Dreams on it) and we let go of so many toys, giant stuffed animals, and clothing. In it's place, I'll have a craft room, a sewing table, and a writing desk.

However, even with so much happening right now, my mind has never left the idea of IVF. While it seems like there's little chance in us getting it through Bill's work, I have found one single ray of hope that has helped many other women in non-mandated states that can't afford to shell out 15k per month. Starbucks has 80% coverage of all IVF and meds. It's only part time work, and benefits kick in after only one month. It has a 15k lifetime limit, which means we'd probably get two cycles out of it (we were already told that we don't need diagnostic testing, which is half of the price normally)

So now I'm thinking to next year. There's a Starbucks about twenty minutes away from us in two different directions (Muhlenburg and Lehigh Mall). Either Bill or I will probably get a job there for three months. It'll be harder for me to work there, even though that was originally my plan, because I'll need to go to the doctors so often and I'll be going through surgery and injections while also needing to work. So it may be Bill's second job for a short time, we'll see. Next year may bring Bill back to college for Engineering, which would mean no time for a part time job on top of a full time job and school load.

This is currently our only option, so we're keeping it in mind and allowing our small hopes to feed off of it for now. Hope was a scary thing before, but now it's becoming a good thing. Uplifting. We'll see where this takes us.

Other places to look into: Staples, Fed Ex and Bank of America

Note - Disney covers some IVF, look into if that extends to Disney Stores

Kinkos - three IVF tries + 3,000$ towards meds, needs 32 hours weekly.

Dreams and Yard Sales

The other day, I had a wonderful dream. It was short, and it would have been boring if it didn't mean so much to me.

I had a dream that Bill and I were just sitting on the bed, in silence, at night time. In my arms was the most perfect little infant. I remarked about how the baby was such a perfect, quiet, sweet baby, and how happy I was that we decided to go through with everything to have another. I kept saying that it was so worth it. Then Bill mentioned "she" and I said "it could be a boy, we don't know," like my brain couldn't decide. Bill replied with "no honey, we do know. It's a girl, remember?" It's interesting that even in my own dream, I'm wrong about the gender! Bill has been right, in real life, 100% of the time now.

That was is. Just laying with our sweet baby cradled in our arms, that baby being perfectly content to just stare back at us with all of it's newness. I woke up feeling so comforted and at peace, and feeling stronger in my conviction to at least try for another.

Yard sales this morning, where I found everything I ever wanted for a baby but couldn't buy, also made me feel the need to try for another. I'm so obviously not done having children. It did make me sad though, to see all the baby stuff - two stands with matching twin everything - when had things gone differently, I'd be pregnant with twins right now and buying two of everything.

So when I got home, I focused on the charity. I had an order for a set of twins last night and a baby boy angel, so I got to work. I spent a lot of time with the kids, teaching them video games, making our traditional Saturday dinner, and drinking chocolate milk. It's a lazy Saturday to just enjoy what I have...and think about what I want.

I'm enjoying my new business. So far I've sold four angels, and have about 3/4th of my start up money back. As soon as I've sold about 10 angels, I'll have enough to start up my charity. I have about $60 worth of supplies I need yet, plus repaying the start up money. While it's probably going to take most of next month to get things situated and paid back, I really enjoy what I'm doing. I'm getting to personalize these sweet sleeping babies for those who need the comfort of having something to remember their babies by. It's a really neat feeling.

Day One of Store Opening

The store is up, running and being used! In just one full day, 4 people favorited my shop, 137 views, 28 favorites on my babies, one online sale, one pending sale on a request and one sale at Bill's work. For one day of work, I think that's pretty good!

Tomorrow will be a great day, I get my clay and my organza baggies, which means I can make my current orders and get them bagged to be sent out. Wednesday is when I get my shipping boxes. I decided to forgo the business cards until I have more money to spare, so I wrote up a page with my logo as the header, a picture of a girl,boy, and neutral baby at the bottom, and our mission statements and websites in it. I'll be printing them out and giving them with each baby, and hopefully they can be passed around and used. I plan on putting one up at Bill's work as well. Working at the biggest employment place in Berks, it should give me an exposure to thousands. 

Eager to keep this going. If I can sell 10 angels, I can repay from the funds that I borrowed for the supplies I put into this and get the charity up and running. Hopefully with each angel I sell, I can get a few new people to follow if they tell their friends and family. 

This is definitely an exciting adventure. Hopefully throughout the week it'll keep up and business will continue! I'm eager to start up my charity as soon as possible. 

A totally new check list? Yep!

Thought that the last list of things I needed to do for the charity would be all that I needed to do, but hah, not even close! (and on second thought, maybe I SHOULD have opened that blog to journal the charity, as it's taking over quite a bit of this blog. However, it's still part of my healing with infertility and loss, and honestly there's not much to write about outside of the charity. Nothing so far has changed, except that the charity work has made me more energetic and happier than I've been since everything happened.)

The last list was my step up to start the foundation. This list is everything needed so I can actually start sending out the angels and selling them.

EDIT: It's only a few hours since I wrote up the list and now have changes!

• I need at least 1 lb of clay. By my estimations on how many ounces it takes per angel, that should get me about 5 angels. Not much, but it's a start. 1 lb = $12. I would love to get the 3 lb for $30, but I don't even have the $12 to scrap together yet after dishing out almost $50 just for the clay molds.  Bill sweetly decided to donate the $12 from his overtime check to the cause, so I ordered the 1 lb of clay to get me started!
• I need shipping boxes. Not the free priority kind that come from the post office, as they would cost an arm and a leg to ship these very light pieces, but small, sturdy ones from amazon. They cost $17 for 50 of them, which is the smallest quantity offered.  What's clay without shipping boxes? I downgraded the size to fit the angel better and ordered 50 for $12. I also signed up for free Amazon prime to get this and the clay shipped for free. Now hopefully I'll be able to remember to sign back OFF of the prime before they charge me $100! Luckily, I had $20 I've been saving to spend on these boxes. I wanted it to be the start of my new camera fund, but first things first. 
• I need a baggie for the angel to go into. Sure, this is mostly presentation and a voice inside of me says "hey, start SMALL," but first impressions are everything. I want everything to be perfect right from the beginning so that word of mouth will spread. Luckily, I found 50 of them in 5x7in for $2 (thank you, China!) Since I saved some money on the boxes, I went ahead and bought these too. I actually skipped getting them from China as I would have had to wait until the end of May or middle of June to get them - much too far away. I spent $6 and got 100 white organza bags, shipping from California.
• I need business cards. Vistaprint is $10 per 500, so I'll probably be going with them. It may cost a little more though, as I want the back printed as well. With shipping, it'll probably be closer to $20-25. Eek 
• I want to get little stickers with the charity logo. I know, again that's only for presentation and totally necessary? Probably not. But these would be from Shutterfly, which I have multiple $20 off coupons for. So I'd probably only pay overpriced shipping of $7-ish. 
• I need to create Etsy listings. These are about $0.20 cents a piece. I want to make a lot of them to get them out there. Most crafters I talk to say you barely see any purchases until you have at least 50 items in your store. Well, it'll take me forever to get to 50, but I'd like to create a lot of options and list them. 
• I need a bigger audience. I need to find a way to spread word about the charity to the people it matters most to. I'll probably be contacting other miscarriage/baby loss charities to ask if they'd be willing to help with this. 
• I need to figure out EXACTLY what's going into the comfort packets besides the angel. I'd like to have a card that has a comforting bible verse on it for those struggling, a few business cards to be handed out, and maybe one or two other things. I'm going to look around at what others that are gone now once offered. They need to be inexpensive, but a nice added touch.

I think the rest is done. Paypal set up, two emails set up (one for main and one for donations), website finished (I even replaced all the pictures that only had logos in them with actual angel pics now), facebook page up, logo finalized, a baby for each catagory made and photographed, etsy account made, twitter done, pinterest done, pretty much every way to get the word out on the internet has an account and has been worked on. 

Phew, I've been super busy in the last two weeks! This doesn't include the fact that I decided to also start writing again, and have spent every minute not already accounted for by children, cooking, housecleaning and charity stuff, on writing. I wake up at 5:30 AM, start writing around 6 AM and spend 1-2 hours on charity and writing, then work on it as I can throughout the day, then it's the last thing I do at night. Repeat, repeat, repeat. And yet I'm super energetic and excited every day now!

First Angel Prototype

Here it is! The big step I've been so eager to make in my charity.

My very first angel!

This is just a prototype, it's not even baked hard yet. I'm still trying to figure out which positions I want the wings to be in, how big I want the wings, and where I want them to end.

The baby mold came early, it was supposed to get here today but instead arrived yesterday morning. I immediately tore it open and got to work. The kids loved watching it, and were obsessed with the little baby.

I packed the mold full of clay, then put it in the freezer for about two hours. It really wasn't very hard yet, but I was too eager to see so I did my best to pop it out. Getting the big head out of the little head section is akin to watching someone give birth! But even with it only being somewhat cold, it still finally came out.

There were a few bumps and scratches from this, but I was able to smooth out each one. Once that was done, I couldn't wait for the wings to freeze, and they were even less done than the baby. I started cutting them and placing them in all different ways, and the details got touched out by the end. When I do this professionally, I'll have to control myself and actually allow the correct times to pass on each mold.

While it's not perfect yet, and no little extra embellishments have been added, I am totally in love with this little baby. He's the absolute perfect size, he's exactly the length of my palm and looks so adorably cradled in it. It's exactly what I was dreaming of - a baby that would fit so comfortably and would have a light but noticable weight.

Most of the clay angel babies I've found being sold are half the size of this. They're so dinky. This is big and solid.

I nearly cheaped out and bought a lesser mold, one that most sellers use (only $9 instead of $30, just like the cheaper wings were only $3 but I had to get the $8.50 ones!), but I finally realized that it just wouldn't do. They were nice, but they weren't what I was envisioning. I wanted amazing, not just nice. I wanted the big size and the amazing detail.

I'm so happy with this baby. I can't wait to get more clay and start playing with designs! This is my basic angel and will probably end up being close to what my Jamie style will be. But I'm eager to try out the Elizabeth style, with little flowers and pearls and hairbands, and my Jesse style, with blue tipped wings and hats. Hopefully it won't take too much time to get enough money to buy some mohair and be able to give these babies super realistic newborn hair.

But for now, bald is obviously beautiful!

Weekend and Checklist continued.

This weekend was very. busy for us. It was emotionally taxing as well. I spent Friday and Saturday packing some of my best baby things, many of the clothing still had tags on them and many of the items were never used. Sunday I set up a beautiful stand at the flea market. I priced everything pretty low so that I wouldn't have to do this twice with my favorite items (I still have LOTS of baby stuff to get rid of, this was only about 1/4 of the stuff I have) and most of it I watched walk off one by one. It was like little splinters in my heart each time. I watched my Moses Basket, which I had so loved and was so thrilled to get, walk off. And the teddy bear pack and play that I have many pictures of baby Katie using, where she took her naps and played. Her little Disney Princess pony went, many of the baby outfits for the next baby and from Katie's babyhood went. The adorable pink snow suit and winter jacket set. It was very rough. Being $60 richer doesn't soothe as much as I was hoping it would. Next time comes out all of the baby clothing, the bouncers, the swings, the cosleeper, the exersaucer, etc.

However, I did find time this weekend to continue working on the charity check list.

• $40 for the molds
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• $35 for the flesh clay start up
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• My own examples and pictures to show  (I've begun working on this! The angel wings came on Saturday, so I've been working on them with different colors. The baby mold is being shipped today, I'm so very eager for it to get here!)
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• A website that lets me have a page for order forms as well as a message page  
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• A paypal for just the charity  I made up a new email and started a personal paypal to begin with. I can upgrade it to a business one if needed, but for now I'd rather keep things simple.
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• Tax information about running a charity
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• A Facebook Page and marketing it
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• A name for the charity  
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• An email for charity use - probably a gmail one?
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• Get business cards made to mail with the angels (all designed, just waiting for funds)
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• Decide on how many angels to list  

• Get a store front - I set up an Etsy store and will do a Storenvy store today, since I'm still unsure of which one I'll go with. I like Storenvy's set up and being completely free much better, but I know more people are comfortable with Etsy and there's a better reach there.
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• ADDING TO THE LIST: Look into stickers with the logo and angel names on them to put on the flat bottom of each angel. Looking to cashing in some of the $20 free Shutterfly coupons I've gotten lately!   All the stickers I can find won't fit on the bottom of an angel, but I'm still looking into it to put on the box. 
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• Finding perfect, short bible verse to go with the charity - something about comforting

For the bible verse, these are the ones I'm narrowing down from:

When I thought 'My Foot Slips' your steadfast love, oh Lord, held me up. Psalm 94:18

The Lord is near to the broken hearted and He saves the crushed in spirit. Psalm 43:18

I have made you and I will carry you. I will sustain you and I will rescue you. Isaiah 46:4

Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you - Hebrews 13:5

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you - Isaiah 43:2

Charity Checklist

I've been (slightly obsessively) working on my charity project over the last few days. So far, it's going quite well. I've been surveying people for ideas and names, constantly fine tuning the new website, talking to sellers of molds to decide on the best one for my needs, and creating all the online things I need. This was my list from the other post a few days ago, updated:

• $40 for the molds  I FINALLY decided, after lots of talking to the seller who actually created the special baby mold to make sure it would work best and the copyright laws on it would not affect what I'm trying to do, to go with the best instead of the affordable. I also upgraded the mold for the wings to get ones that are a bit bigger and more detailed, so both molds will be here by next week. I spent money I was planning to use for Katie's party decorations (both ballet recital and birthday) but I'll have to use money I was saving for a vacation on those things. If I wait until I have extra paypal money, this charity will never launch and I need some time with the molds and clay to perfect my look. 
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• $35 for the flesh clay start up (I found out this will get me 3 lbs of flesh colored clay, which will be about enough for one month of requests. I won't know until I see just how much the mold requires. I'll also need a little more than this for the white clay for the wings.  But...all I have right now is a small amount of flesh clay and white, which will be my practice. (originally it was supposed to be for sculpting our family out of clay, but that's gonna be pushed to the back burner for now. I started sculpting for my angels, not for the cute little projects I dream up!)
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• My own examples and pictures to show (should have next week)
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• A website that lets me have a page for order forms as well as a message page  (after days of figuring out how to do an order form that doesn't require me to pay so that the order form can accept paypal links, I've FINALLY figured it out and have the website ready to publish! This was a HUGE step and was very time consuming.)
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• A paypal for just the charity (I made half of a business account, realized I wasn't sure if I liked it or not and stopped. Now I"m trying to figure out if I want to continue the business way that allows for more types of payments, or just make a second personal one.)
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• Tax information about running a charity
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• A Facebook Page and marketing it
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• A Wordpress blog for the charity (Deciding on how necessary this one is still! I could just do the updates on FB)
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• A name for the charity  (after finding out that Healing Heart Angels is already a loss charity as is Angelic Comforts, I defaulted to my last two and ultimately chose the voted favorite, Angel of Mine Charity)
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• An email for charity use - probably a gmail one?
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• Get business cards made to mail with the angels (disappointed to find that vistaprint no longer offers free cards! I did manage to design my own card that I really like, so hopefully I can find the funds to get them. Luckily vistaprint does have some pretty good deals.)
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• Decide on how many angels to list  Bill and I came to the decision to fully recognize Jesse's twin now that we've had time to process and talk about it, so Jamie's name will also be included in the charity. 
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• ADDING TO THE LIST: Look into stickers with the logo and angel names on them to put on the flat bottom of each angel. Looking to cashing in some of the $20 free Shutterfly coupons I've gotten lately!

So, I'm nearly there! All the biggest stuff is out of the way already. Now it's time for the little things and then getting to PLAY with the designs and take pictures to put up.