Adopt A Soldier....

I saw a bulletin post on MySpace to "Adopt a US Soldier" from Frannie in my network and thought this was a great cause to help someone out that is out there protecting our freedom and putting his/her life on the line every day. Frannie's son-in-law is awaiting his 3rd tour in Iraq right now and her daughter decided to take this whole project upon herself - later realizing that she was spending so much money mailing packages... on a soldiers salary it was tough. So her mom, Frannie, decided to post for help on MySpace. I decided to email her back and I signed up! I got my soldier and will be sitting down to write him in the upcoming days. These are men and women who have no families, or anyone, to write them letters, send them simple things they may miss and help them connect with the home they have been away from for so long.

I just did some searching out there on the good ole "Internet" and found a slew of programs in which offer the same thing - helping others - humanity, touching a person's life, connecting, sharing, filling a void... not matter how big or how small - it matters. Here are a couple sites to check out: http://www.soldiersangels.org/ - http://www.americasupportsyou.mil/ - http://www.operationusocarepackage.org/ - www.adoptaussoldier.org/ - http://www.adoptaplatoon.org/ - www.adoptasoldierplatoon.org/ - http://www.anysoldier.com/
Adopt a Service Member: http://www.operationac.com/

Contact Frannie (I would assume you would have to be a MySpace member) & there is a link on the right of her MySpace page as well: http://www.myspace.com/frannidoeshair

Check the sites out... see what it is all about... put feelings and views aside - even if you don't believe in the war... or in war in general... they truly believe in what they are doing... they believe they are making a difference.

Handbook to Handmade Volume III ~ Etsy Artisans

Since discovering Etsy in November of 2007 - I have been immersed... setting up my shop, getting my name/product recognized in the Etsy community and learning the ins & outs of the site. One fanatic thing about Etsy is the forums. This is where you can promote, gain knowledge, join Etsy teams and meet other Etisans. I just happened to stumble on a "Call for Artists" post from an established Etsian - Timothy Adam, of TimothyAdamDesigns, who was looking for artists to feature in his 3rd edition of Handbook to Handmade.... a coffee table book and tribute to Etsy Artisans. In this book you will find 36 people with amazing talents and I am happy to be included as one of them! I am thinking I

may even sign up for another volume.

It is an investment and good resource to take to shows. This book has gone all over the US and to the UK.

Sadly, after only having the book a matter of days, my 3yr old spilled water on it. It took me an hour to blow dry the pages and the back page is ruined... half the book has wavy pages - but no content has been lost... and my pages still look great. At some point I would like to replace it with a fresh copy.

Check out some of the fantastic artists: http://timothyadamdesigns.etsy.com/ ... http://lilleypad.etsy.com/ ... http://janedeaux.etsy.com/ ... http://art2theextreme.etsy.com/ ... http://mjpartetc.etsy.com/ ... http://chocolateandsteel.etsy.com/ and many, many more!! Check out Tim's blog http://etsypromobook.blogspot.com/ to view more of the artists featured and all the nitty gritty on the book! This is only the beginning....