The amazing generosity of crafters

Our school's foundation holds an auction every year to raise money to help pay for our librarian, after school sports, band and other programs that have otherwise been slashed from our dwindling budgets.

You may know that I have a store on etsy.  As a vendor, I was recently contacted by a local mom who was soliciting for donations for her own school's auction. I'm very happy to send her some cards to help with her efforts and, after thinking and consulting with our own auction coordinators, I contacted some of the etsy sellers whose work I most admire (looking first to local vendors but not limiting myself by geography) and gave them a really low-key pitch (I know that you can't contribute to every cause that comes along).

The response has been wonderful and gratifying! The etsy community of crafters is such a generous and supportive group.

So far, I have contributions coming from these wonderful people:

• D's Chic Boutique (a bag, matching cosmetic bag and wallet)
  
• Barking Bird Art
  
• LittlePutBooks (she generously allowed me to select whatever I wanted from her store. I chose a set of forest blocks, pictured above)
• Cat Ludwig Studio (a 5x7 matted print and notecards)
  
• oh fransson! (a quilt)
  
• Karrie Welborn Photography (notecards)
  
• Happy Goat Soap (soap gift package)
  
• Broken Teepee Design (jewelry)
  
• TieDyeTodd's (tie-dyed shirt)
  
• Piddix (royalty-free art)
  
• Rose City Soap Supply (soap)
  
• Chaucer's Chewy Chirashi (cookie/egg roll/2-piece sushi combos cat toys)
  
• Galinblack (two pop-up cards)
  
• mollylee (pop-up cards) (okay, this is me and I would have done this anyway)
• oola (children's clothing and cards)
• TCWitchFactory  (cards and giftcard holders)
• TreAnelli (stackable rings)
• BlueDogCreative (jewelry)
• LushPDX (girl's capelet and hat set)
• LuciousNaturals (natural beauty products)
• Treehouse28 (arm warmers)
• LuckyFrog
• Christym113 (Twilight pendant and cards)
• DaogreerEarthworks 
• aandvdesigns (bag)
• SewnNatural (quilt)
• berkleyillustration (pair of prints)
• Caelista 
• johnwgolden
• LittleMamasDesigns 
• AutumnComfort

I'll keep this list updated if I hear from any more people. I'm just so pleased with the response I've gotten already. oh franssom! is actually making a quilt for us! (she attended a Portland public school and her mother was a school librarian, so she was very supportive)

Please, check out the wonderful stores of these generous donors by clicking on the links above!

School Days

Last week, Tad had told me that the first day of school was Thursday, so I blocked out that day on my calendar so that I could take the boys in and meet their teachers. I found it odd that every other parent I talked to thought that school started on Wednesday.

On the weekend, I asked him what sort of school supplies they would need on the first day of class. He told me that a list hadn't arrived with their teacher assignments and he assumed that we would receive a list when they showed up.

Luckily, over the weekend, we discovered the truth on both counts, otherwise, we would have shown up a day late, completely empty handed.

A fellow Glencoe School mom, Emily, pointed me to the Glencoe School Supply List online. (Emily and I both worked on the Glencoe School Foundation website over the summer, for which I am very grateful. Prior to that, we had launched her own website for her freelance writing after she purchased my services at the last foundation auction.)

The school supplies list is such a blend of old classics (24 count crayons, a Pink Pearl eraser (I remember wondering as a child WHY Pink Pearl???), wide-ruled paper, notebook) and new, unfamiliar ones (why do they need clipboards? What are the Post-it notes for?).

So, tomorrow's a big day for the kids! Third grade is when they get to go up to the second floor of the building, leaving the little kids behind on the ground floor.