purchase of the year

Hands down. Best purchase of the year. I won't bore you with the details, but I will say this: Last pair left in the store. My size. Rang up for half of what I expected (which ended up being slightly more than my lunch. Such a steal). Made traveling seven hours with my boss IN A U-HAUL totally worth it.




Luckily I have a boss that 1. is enjoyable to be around, despite being IN A U-HAUL and 2. relishes in amazing purchases even if they are not her own.

It's pouring down rain here today. I'm not at all upset about this, because it was supposed to be ice and I got to wear my new wellies to the grocery store.

Off to clean. Enjoy your weekend.

xo,
Amy

AHOPE update

A short time ago, Katie and I sent our first check to AHOPE. We were both really excited about this--and are even more excited knowing that we will be able to give more in the future. Katie received a letter from them today in the mail, which I of course made her read aloud to me over the phone--including the contents of the enclosed brochures. I then made her read it aloud again, so that I could type it all up and share it in my blog. Katie was not all that impressed with my "but I really can type very quickly" abilities, so she typed it up herself and emailed it to me.

So, here is a portion of the letter which talks about how the donation will be used:

"Your gift will help support AHOPE Ethiopia’s two orphanages for HIV positive children in Addis Ababa as well as the community outreach program that assists what is left of HIV orphan’s families to keep them at home rather than having to abandon them to institutional care. It will also help to build AHOPE Children’s Village.

The financial challenges of our building project and outreach program are a big stretch for us, but the need is definitely there- the statistics on the numbers of orphans in Ethiopia are staggering and many of those orphans are HIV positive. Beyond that however, we want to serve as a model of what can be done- and done right. We can’t do it all, but with your help we can make a difference!"

And here are some interesting facts about AHOPE, should you be interested in more information:

"The mission of African HIV Orphans: Project Embrace is to offer a two-pronged approach to the devastation caused by the AIDS virus in Ethiopia

- Provide a nurturing, stimulating, loving home for infected children orphaned by the disease.
- Provide comprehensive, accurate education to families, staff, and local community regarding AIDS prevention and care of infected loved ones."

It goes on to state that Ethiopia has been severely afflicted by the AIDS epidemic that is happening all over the world. As entire generations are dying, many are leaving behind children. Hundreds of thousands of children. Many of these orphans test positive for the HIV virus. Ethiopia has a serious need for more facilities to care for HIV orphans--those both affected by and infected with HIV. There is also a need to better educate the people of Ethiopia, to break down the superstition and misinformation about AIDS and HIV. One of AHOPE's missions is be able to place HIV+ orphans back into the homes of their existing family members when possible. This is currently very difficult as many are reluctant to adopt children whose parents died of AIDS.

"AHOPE for Children Provides:

-Pleasant and well-staffed children's homes that solely care for orphans that test positive for HIV.
- Love, nurture and education for the children in care.
- Comprehensive medical care, including anti-retroviral medication and counseling, in partnership with World Wide Orphans Foundation.
- Ongoing community programs to educate about AIDS."


For even more information:
Visit the AHOPE for Children website.
Visit the World Wide Orphans Foundation website


I have such mixed feelings right now. I'm so excited for the vision that AHOPE for Children has. And I believe so strongly in what they are doing, and in what they will do. But I know that there is still SO MUCH that has to be done. So much that MUST be done.

I am so incredibly thankful for everyone who has supported us on this journey. It's been a pretty incredible one so far. And I'm really excited to see how it all turns out.

xo,
Amy

heart strings, piano strings

Just wanted to let you know that there are two new prints in the Project 8256 shop. I haven't had the chance to add any new prints in quite some time, so I'm pretty excited about this one, which comes in two colorways, spearmint and tan:

The text in the piano reads "it's the songs you sing that break my heart the most". If you look closely, there are copper-colored swirls throughout the piano, to represent the piano strings.

If heartbreak isn't your thing (right before Valentine's Day and all), I forgot to post that I now have a greeting card featuring the "you are the one i want most of all" print.



xo,
Amy

shuffling about

This is (I am hoping) a quick little post to let you know that there are a few (actually, kind of big) changes going on in the amelia mae side of things. My gallery show closed last weekend, and so now I have all these pretty little things to sell and no place for them. It seemed a little silly to be selling original art pieces next to sets of gift tags, so I have now opened another Etsy shop. My original pieces will now all be housed in the original amelia mae shop, but with a whole new look:



And all of my gift tags and banners are (ever so slowly) being moved into my new shop: amelia mae paper goods.




So, have a look if you'd like. I'll be adding lots of new items to the amelia mae shop over this coming week. For the time being though, you can find lots of little silhouettes looking for a good home:



Happy Monday. Hope your weekend was lovely.

xo,
Amy

Different Lives

1. This is (one of the many reasons) I so love The Sartorialist blog. Such a lovely photo, entitled "Different Lives, Milan". Love.

2. I hope, in all aspects of my life, to be the girl with the red coat and the yellow umbrella.

Best,
Amy

The Ubiquitous New Year's post...

It's hard, really, to put into words what this last year has meant to me. And to my family as well. 2007 started out so, so horribly. My sister and brother-in-law were going through something very painful. I was lost and felt like I had no idea where I was supposed to go, what I was supposed to do. And then a course of events happens and one after the other, you begin to realize that it took the agony and the loss and the disappointment to bring the hope and the joy and the freedom. I am doing things I never dreamed I would ever do. Doors have opened that I never even knew existed. And the most amazing part is that while I am relishing in my God-I-am-obviously-not-as-good-at-doing-things-on-my-own-as-I-thought-please-take-over state of mind, I am getting to sit and watch as my sister is doing EXACTLY what she always dreamed of doing.

Katie has talked about opening her own performing arts academy for, well, I feel fairly comfortable saying the last twenty years. For two decades we have talked about what it would be like, drawn floorplans for the dream buildings and so on and so on. And she's finally doing it. And it's amazing. And I'm so proud. It's an incredible thing, a blessing really, when you get to see someone you love do something she's really good at--like how ridiculously patient she is with children--but then you get to see her do things you never even guessed she was good at, great at even--like building a website, and managing about 5,000 things all at once.

And so I'm so excited for what 2008 will bring. I really don't have any idea, and I find that kind of thrilling. I didn't make resolutions this year. But I did make goals. One of them is to really grow and expand my own business. And one of them is to make some serious progress in getting Katie and Michael further along in their adoption process. To start it off, I have added some new products to the shop:



They are sold individually, and as a set. The set comes packaged like this:



I'm trying it out. If it's successful, I might make some batches of some of the other prints. We'll see.

I hope that 2008 brings lovely, amazing and inspiring things to you as well.

xo,
Amy

new print in the shop

I hope that you all had a lovely holiday season. I personally, had quite a nice little Christmas, and a very relaxing New Years and am ready for the fresh start that the new year brings. I'll post a little more on that in a bit, but for now just wanted to let you know that there is a new print in the shop. This started as a request from a lovely woman who is in the process of adopting her daughter from Vietnam. But I thought I would make it available to everyone, and so here it is:





It's quite similar to the original Family print, although (as you might notice) this one features a family with a daughter. Here is what I wrote a while back about the original concept of the Family print:

"I knew fairly early into the project that I wanted to somehow incorporate the lines from e. e. cummings' poem "i carry your heart with me". And I also knew that I wanted to somehow do an illustration of a family that was based upon this same idea. I'd had this image of a family tied together by their hearts for some time, but it took several different goes at it before I finally arrived at the end product. It was important to me that race or ethnicity not be suggested by the illustration. That is why I chose to leave out their facial features, and why I stuck to a neutral color palate. My goal, really, was to do an illustration of a family that could be any ethnicity, or several ethnicities combined--that the one similarity between them would be their love.

When Katie first proposed the idea of she and Michael adopting internationally, she said it to me as though she was asking if I would love this child the same as a biological child. My answer to that would be "of course" -- a million times "of course". I am sure that this is a question that is asked among every family who makes the decision to adopt internationally. But while it is true that I will never be able to look at their child and point out Katie's eyes or Michael's red hair, I am quite certain that attachment and love and a sense of an emotional connection will be no different at all.

I think that what Katie was really asking is something that we all ask ourselves--something that is so completely universal. I think we all have those moments when we just want someone to tell us that we are good enough. I do at least. Or did I just divulge too much of my own insecurity? I doubt it.

Katie has been watching a new show on TLC where they have given children video cameras and allowed them to document their lives. There was a young girl on one of the episodes who had been adopted into a interracial family. When speaking of her family she said "I don't think it matters who you are with, as long as you're loved". Perfect."


Happy New Year!

xo,
Amy