Tomorrow ...

New prints available tomorrow! :)

[watermark will not show on prints]

Starting tomorrow & running the rest of the month I will be participating in {handmade with purpose.} It is a group put together by my sweet friend Lindsay [of Paint Me a Picture]. She started a blog for all those participating - so you can see all the various shops & blogs, what they're doing & what they're doing it for. It's going to be pretty cool. And I know as much as I love buying just because I like it / think it's cute / have to have it ... I like buying something 10x more if there's a story behind it & if I'm contributing towards a positive change somewhere in the world.  Think of it as a donation with benefits. :) So get ready to click & shop & support with all your heart!

This will be my 3rd year doing something for Autism Awareness Month. I have said many times - I am a terrible business person. :) I paint because I like it & that's that.  I don't like to push my work on anyone. But this is the one time a year I feel comfortable doing it - because it's not for me. This year, my fundraiser will concentrate more on PRINTS. At the moment I have 6 different prints available. All the net proceeds [everything minus the cost to print, shipping supplies & etsy fee] will be donated. In addition, 30% of all the original hand-painted artwork [the ones on canvas] will be donated. Throughout the month, if I find the time to make more artwork & prints, I will. So please visit the shop through out the month to see if there's anything new! :)

What am I raising money for? Well. This past summer we had some private speech therapy for my son Brett with one of our very favorite therapists. :) She was wonderful, the fact that she came to the house was wonderful & the program she used was as if it was written for Brett. It was language based. He has both a speech & language delay - but his speech has improved so much over time. His language on the other hand, still needs a lot of 'organization'. Sentence structure, prepositions, pronouns & all that fun stuff. As you can imagine - as a 3rd grader, having a language delay greatly affects your reading & writing among other things, like communicating with others.

This fall, when school started again, I was catching up with our Resource Teacher at school, telling her what we worked on this summer. She became interested in the program & started researching it. A month ago I spoke with her & she informed me the "Language for Learning" program was on "the list" of things for the Resource Center to buy after they had the money to do so.  I was thrilled just knowing it was in our future!!!!!  Of course I wish I had the money to just buy it.  But, $500 (+) is a lot of money. Last time I shook out my piggy bank, I was a lot short of that. So I got the idea to use my Autism Awareness Fundraiser towards that ... raising enough $ to hopefully purchase that program, which will benefit not only Brett, but other students at our school with a language delay.

So that's my {handmade with purpose}. :) Can't wait to share my new artwork with you. Throughout the month I will write a bit about the art pieces ... why I chose them. Stay tuned.