Watch Our Progress

easy fundraisers

Thursday, June 23, 2011

More Stuff For Sale

I've had several great suprises today.  First off, a customer at my job who I have never met came in today to add a vehicle to his policy and ended up giving me a $100 donation towards our adoption!!  Then I decided to check my paypal account today after not checking it for several weeks and found 2 donations totalling $150!!  I'm so thankful that people are supportive and want to be a part of what we are doing.  So THANK YOU SO MUCH!

On another note, I've been working on a few small projects over the past few weeks and here's what I've got.  I made some homemade earrings that I'm selling for $5.00 each plus some shipping (I haven't mailed any yet so I'm not sure how much shipping will be)   I also thought I would post some of my cards.  I'm selling them for $2.50 each, which is still cheaper than buying a nice one in the store!  I'm not sure how much shipping on these will be either but if you are interested let me know and I'll figure it out.

**UPDATE** I removed the pictures because I left all the cards and earrings with my sister in law in Florida! ha ha  I think she will have good luck selling them down there and I've got so many supplies to make more cards.  I'm going to be working on starting an ETSY page soon and will post my new creations on there.

Sunday, June 19, 2011


HOLY YARD SALE!!!  We had an adoption benefit yard sale this past weekend and it was a LOT of work but a great success.  We made almost $1400!! I almost had anxiety (but probably more excitement) on how much stuff I had at my house.  My garage was full and my basement was pretty full.  The donations came  pouring in and the best part is most of it was priced already because it was stuff from other yard sales! That saved me so much time.

The best part of all is that my mom and dad were able to come down mid last week and help me.  Honestly, my mom did a lot of work on Thursday sorting through things.  People were stopping on Thursday while she was organizing things and she ended up making about $240 that day! lol
Thank you so much to everyone who helped whether they donated stuff, brought tables and wracks or volunteered their time to stop by and help us out.  We wouldn't have been able to raise as much money as we did without you!! :)

The sign I made for our front porch!


My little helpers, Caylie and Wesley

Their crazy Mom, Carrie :)

Coach Cotten (McMinnville's Most Eligible Bachelor!!) striking a pose

Monday, June 13, 2011

380 shirts sold!!

I just turned in my 4th t-shirt order this morning and as I was looking back I am completely amazed that we have sold 380 t-shirts to date!!  That is so amazing and I'm so grateful for the support.  I went to the grocery store the other day and the boy who was bagging my groceries had on one of our "support adoption" bracelets.  It made me smile :)  I'm still taking orders for t-shirts but I can only turn them in with quantities of 24 now so if you'd like a t-shirt I do have a few extra at the house but otherwise you might want to drum up 23 friends to get shirts too! ha ha

So as a special thank you to all the people who have bought t-shirts from me, I'd like to post some of the photos they have sent me!  If you've purchased a shirt and would like to send me a photo to post you can send it to monica452@hotmail.com or you can tag me on facebook.

Support from Carrie and Mike (St. Louis, MO)

Thanks Elizabeth!! (Houston, Texas)

Support from Joelle and her little man! (Kansas City, MO)

Thanks Kristen! (Huntersville, North Carolina)

Showing love all the way from Argentina! Thanks Tiff :)

Support from Lara Kate! (McMinnville, TN)

All smiles and support from Beth! (Louisville, KY)

Tommy and his brother, Chris (our Pastor) in Murfreesboro, TN

Love from my brother and sister in law!! (Blue Grass, IA)

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Sunday was a GREAT day!

This past Sunday was a great day!  We were invited to Christ Family Church by our friend Chris and Mary Jane Paz.  Some of their congregation had requested we do a coffee bar and sell Ethiopian coffee, so we gladly said yes.

Lucky for us, our coffee website "Just Love Coffee" is located in Murfreesboro which is only a 45 minute drive for me so I went up there to purchase a variety of African coffees to sell.  The store front for this company was really neat!  It is a great place to hang out on their couches, but also had a loft full of arcade games.  But the really neat part was that you could see where they kept the burlap bags of coffee beans and the roasting machine.  It smelled great in there!

Just Love Coffee Headquarters



Not only did we sell coffee by the cup and bags of coffee at church on Sunday but I also sold my homemade cards and some earrings that I had made!  I'll have to post some pics of my cards when I get time, they are very cute and only $2 each :)  The earrings are cute too and are $5 each. 



My favorite pair!



All the pairs I made
Loungey!

Bags of coffee


The roasting machine


Grinding my beans
Needless to say we met a lot of great, supportive people, heard a great message and made $200 towards our adoption!  God is good!!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Donations from unlikely places

True to my husband's form - he brought home a bunch of mail from some colleges that had been sitting on his work desk for the past several weeks.  He talks to college coaches a lot about camps for his football boys and any upcoming seniors that might be a good fit for their university.

He had spoken with a coach at Easter Kentucky University about our plans to adopt.  He said it was a brief conversation and that the coach wished him luck in our journey.  When he opened the mail from EKU, inside was a $20 bill and short note from the Coach.  It said that he was very excited for us and that although it was small, he wanted to contribute to our adoption fund!!

Little suprises like that just melt my heart and I'm so thankful that total strangers feel the spirit to give to our cause. :)