Upcoming puzzle fundraiser

As one of our (many) fundraising activities, we’re going to be doing a really fun one….a puzzle fundraiser!  Here’s how it works:

We’ve bought a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle (that just HAPPENS to coordinate with how I intend to decorate N.B.’s room!) and we’ll be asking pretty much everyone we know to sponsor puzzle pieces for a small donation (suggested $5-10 per piece, but we’re not picky).  When a piece is sponsored, we’ll write the sponsor’s name on the back and will add it to the completed puzzle.  So if we have 50 sponsored pieces, we’ll put together 50 pieces of the puzzle.  The puzzle can’t be completed until every piece is sponsored!

Once the puzzle is completed (yay!), we’ll preserve it using puzzle glue and will hang it in N.B.’s room.  That way it serves as a constant reminder of everyone who helped us bring N.B. home!  As he gets older, we can go over it with him and look at all of the names of people who loved him before he was even here.

I’m so excited about this fundraiser as it’s something that I think will last as a lifetime reminder of how amazing the people in our little pieces of the world are.

So the puzzle is ordered and should be here any day!  Steve has worked up the wording for a little piece of paper we can give friends to introduce them to the fundraiser, so if we know you "in real life", you’ll probably be getting one soon.  =)

In other news, we received Holt’s legalese adoption agreement and will be taking it to the bank to sign and have it notarized tomorrow (grrrr for bank holidays today!), so that (and the $300 application fee) will be in the mail and on its way to Oregon tomorrow!  Yay!

Also, yesterday I found the fabric and some artwork that I want to use for N.B.’s bedding and general decorating:

http://www.quiltingtreasures.com/content2226.html

It’s an older collection (Fall 2007) and some prints are REALLY hard to find, so I’ve ordered a bit of one print already (25605, the block print), but am waiting to buy the rest until we’re closer to our next big fundraising goal ($14,500).  The artist, Julia Cairns, also has a few prints commercially available, so I think we’ll be picking up one or two of those to hang.  The puzzle we’re using for the fundraiser is of one of her pieces, so everything should coordinate really nicely.  I’m so excited about it as I think it’s perfect for N.B.’s room.  Love the bright colors and lovelovelove Cairn’s artwork.  It’s boyish (whatever that means), but isn’t boring, and hopefully provides a bit of connection to his heritage.  Plus it’s not too babyish, which is important since N.B. isn’t a baby!  Hopefully it will last at least a few years.  I’m planning to make a real quilt for his bed, so hopefully he should be able to have that for his entire lifetime, even if his decorating tastes change.  =)