craft project number 1 - part 1 - burp cloths

thinking to myself that i would save money by replicating something adorable i found on etsy.com, i decided i was going to set out to create my own colorful burp cloths.  it took me weeks, but i ordered all of the supplies and got everything assembled for the craft extravaganza.

i ordered burp cloths (gerber old fashioned cloth diapers) back in april, just knowing i was going to end up working on this task.  i set out then to try and find a selection of colorful dyes, but was unsuccessful at locating these at a local store and ended up having to order these off the internet.  while i waited for that i selected some fabrics for the insets, and even ordered some bias tape to help me finish off the edges.  after a follow up trip to michael's craft store, and the dollar store, i thought i had all of my parts assembled and set out to begin the process yesterday evening.

i got all of my things together and re-read the instructions and found that the dye package was calling for 1 cup of salt.  with 5 colors being prepared here, there was no way i had enough salt on hand, and as a matter of fact  -  i had no salt at all, besides Himalayan sea salt.  blah.  back to the store i went.

after returning home will helped me by filling up all of the buckets and creating an assembly line with buckets full of colorful water, wooden stir sticks for the 30 minutes of agitation each dye bucket needed, black contractor bags to ensure the grass did not end up looking like a rainbow, and 6 pairs of rubber gloves.  i had washed all of the items prior to dunking in the color buckets so they would be free of any color blocking chemicals and would be wet to accept the dye.  i lugged them all outside in yet another black contractor bag and started counting them out and submerging the cloth in the buckets.  it was hot, i was sweating, but i kept with it and in half an hour i had a rainbow of colorful cloths and shirts.

this is where the fun began.  it seems that i forgot that our exterior hose bibs need to be replaced, which left me with no way to rinse the dye from the fabrics once i was outside.  my next bright idea was to put everything back into the contractor bags and carry them all (very carefully) through the house and into the master bathroom shower.  here - i proceeded to rinse fabrics for over an hour.  the directions that say rinse until the water runs clear must be some cruel joke, because no matter what i did, this was not going to happen.  after coming to this realization i then put the fabrics back into their respective bags and carried them to the washer.  starting with the lightest color to the darkest color i washed each of five batches between 9pm and 2am.

holy cannoli!  so much work and this project is not yet complete!  however, i had to share where we stand at this point.  stay tuned for project number 1 - part 2 - burp cloths.

exciting times - we're a waiting family!

lots of amazing things have happened this week! 

yesterday we got a nice little box from blurb.com with our profile books inside!  we decided to go with blurb to create our books because of the ease of using their downloaded program.  we really enjoyed using the software and think the books turned out really well!

we went ahead and requested second day air so we could get everything wrapped up.

we were pleased with the way that the dust jacket turned out. 

we ordered 5 copies of our book.  we wanted one book for our child's library and then had to have four other books for the various offices around the state.

we also got the great news that our web profile was complete! 

it took some major back and forth with the agency because there was some controversy about the original soundtrack music we had picked for our video slide show.  it was thought that we might have to have a copyright release form to use the music and we were unsuccessful at getting the artist's record labels to respond to our requests.  however, after we ended up redoing our video with new music, we found out after the fact that we actually could have kept the first set of music we'd utilized.  in the end, we are happier with the music we have included as the soundtrack for the slide show because it is less distracting and allows the viewer to more easily focus on the content of the video. 

 it's just further proof that:

• everything happens for a reason
• everything happens in God's time
• you may not know why you go through trials, but it always works out in the end

to view us online you can check out our profile by going to:

Will & Adri - Bethany Christian Services Web Profile

we're so excited that we've completed everything that we needed to do to get on the official waiting list!