Meltdown #1

I have been trying to blog for months and even though i feel like I am being squeezed so hard in all directions, I have to sit and write this post.  For me.

Finding the Art Center space is such a huge blessing.

And for someone like me a a bit of a curse. 

I tend to overdo everything/take on too much.  I have a vision and I want it to go just as planned. Not having it go as planned is making me sick.

My brain, already having A.D.D. tendencies is spinnnig.  I feel like someone standing at the edge of a cliff all the time.  not a big cliff that could kill me :)  Just one that is daring me to jump off. Which is exciting and terrifying at the same time.

At the bottom of the cliff?  A HUGE GIANT ENORMOUS to do list that leads to my dreams coming true!

Every single thing on the list needs my attention in some way. I can't just hand things off or people (amazing volunteers who I am so grateful to) Everything needs guidance.

And the biggest scare as come in the form of money.  I have made the decision to personally fund the Art Center.  Not because I have money, but because I have credit and I have big dreams and big faith.  And because I know more people will sign up when they can see the center open and running.  It's just not happening right now.

My brother once told me  something like...I am not a philanthropist. Philanthropists have money. I am a person who wants to do good things.  This is exactly what I am and I hate that it requires money to do this.

THE REAL PROBLEM IS... I AM SCARED I CAN'T DO IT ALL. THAT I WILL FAIL. but im not going to stop so it's going to be what it is....

So if you read this far, you know my brain is not working right but I know I am doing the right thing and I know it will all work out, because it always does.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Still a happy people!

Now to go open an Art Center and bring free art to soooo many people!

Do you know what Charity Wings does?

I want to grow my organization, Charity Wings.

I want to open a Charity Wings Art Center!

Will you support me?

Only if you know what the heck it is I do!

So here it is in a nutshell.

Charity Wings has been around since April 2006 and we have:

• hosted over 150 fundraising and awareness raising events
• raised over $460,000
• helped more than 73 different non profit organizations
• collected socks for the homeless during the cold rainy season
• collected over 5000 cards for military men and women stationed overseas
• created 73 scrapbooks for families coping with cancer
• hosted art events for breast cancer support groups
• and many more....

These are just a few of the things we have done.

What we are doing now is opening a Charity Wings Art Center.

Its going to be a place for everyone to Give, Gather and Create!

The Art Center will have two main functions:

1. To partner with other non- profits to offer free art and creativity classes and events to their beneficiaries.
2. To serve the Arts and Crafts Community by hosting classes, events and open studio time for our online and patron members.

 Partnering with other non profits will allow us to reach many people that can benefit from the therapeutic rewards of creating. We will not have to qualify people to join the free classes as long as they are referred by a partnering non profit.  We can also reach non profits all over the world by shipping them supplies then teaching them through internet technology like skype or google hangout.  The skies the limit on this one!

So what do I need from you?

We need members.

The Charity Wings Art Center will be mostly funded by memberships.  We will have different levels from online memberships starting at $10 per month, to patron memberships starting at $20 per month.  There will be something for everyone.

We are still in the process of figuring out a few of the details but we will be taking members very soon.

I hope you will join me in this movement and help us spread the joy of creating around the world,

 because everyone is happy when they are being creative.

Learn more about the Art Center here

Want to help? email me elena@charitywings.org  We are always looking for volunteers.

This breaks my heart.

I got an email yesterday from a fellow artist who warned me of a scam being emailed around about a woman who claims to be collecting money for one of the Sandyhook Elementary School shooting victims.  UGH!  Why do people do this?

I had gotten an email from this same woman during the Hurricane Sandy aftermath asking for donations and I did some research and it did not look legit so I didn't give.  I had planned to contact the woman since I see her on facebook, but then I got busy with Seaside Soiree and forgot.

Then... last night Matt told me about this story and this morning Paul also told me about it.

It's so sad because she says she is a victim of ememies in the crafting community.  OMG!!  the look on Anderson's face when he hears this is priceless! Seriously this video tells the story better than I can.

Charity Wings is a registered 501(c)(3) organization. We file taxes, we pay sales tax on auction items, we follow the rules and we are open for the public to scrutinize.  Whoever you give your money to should be just this open.

IRS WEBSITE WHERE YOU CAN CHECK OUR NON PROFIT STATUS

I want our organization to ALWAYS OPERATE ABOVE REPROACH.  Ask us anything. We are happy to answer any questions you have.

Here is what we are doing for Hurricane Sandy Victims:

"Hope" for Hurricane Sandy Canvas

Here is what we are doing for Newtown, CT:

"Hope" for a Change Canvas

"Hope" for Hurricane Sandy Victims

As Hurricane Sandy was approaching I knew I needed to come up with a plan to help with the aftermath and the devastation it was going to leave behind.  But how?  I just couldn't come up with a good idea.  Until one morning I woke to terrible news and I knew I absolutely had to...

It happened when I read a story about a woman who was driving and trying to evacuate with her 2 young boys (2&4 years old I believe). They stalled in a flooded road and she got out of her car, holding them both. The water was too strong and over powered her and her two young precious boys were swept out of her arms.  The story I read was about the boys bodies being found 3 days later.

I cried.
A lot.

It is a horror I couldn't imagine.

So after brainstorming and asking for suggestions, this is what I came up with.  I contacted a few friends and asked for their help.  I would start a canvas and then send it to the next person so they could add to it.  The catch was, it needed to be passed on within 2 days.  The response was instantaneous and positive.

Charity Wings is pre-selling 8x10 matted prints of the final product for $24.99+ shipping

click here to donate

THINK OF ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY WHO WOULD LOVE TO GET ONE AS A GIFT! 

BUY 4 GET ONE FREE!

(keep the free one for yourself!)

SHIPPING IN TIME FOR THE HOLIDAYS!

Please don't be sad if I did not ask you to be a part of this. I don't know how I picked these girls, it was just the way my heart and mind went this time :) there are about a million wonderful amazing artists I could have asked and I know most of them would say yes!

This is what I do.

I create opportunities for our community of Artists, Crafters, and Scrapbookers to do good.
This is the gift I was given and I am going to use it every day for as long as I can!

About the canvas:

I started with a 9x12 canvas and added a blue sky.  Because of course!  Blue skies are ahead.

Then I cut a heart out of chipboard and covered it with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" sheet music.  Because of course! Rain brings rainbows.

Then I covered it with Hard Coat Mod Podge, inked with Tim Holtz Distress Ink (old paper and tattered rose) and glittered with Tattered Angles Chandelier Glam and Goosebumps shimmer spray

and Voila! A Canvas is started.

It's on it way to Jamie Dougherty and then the rest of the girls on the list.  See all of the fabulous artists by clicking here.

I swear you can't know.

"Flying in the dark with my broken wing"

There is just no way possible. You may have had a lot of hard things happen to you, but you still don't know.

Unless you are in the exact same situation as me, you can't possibly know what it is like.
Have you spent years trying to get pregnant?
Have you spent thousands of dollars and been poked, stuck with needles daily, had your female parts explored in painful ways and tested for a million things only to have no answers?
Have you watched your family and friends get pregnant, some more than once?
Have you attended and thrown many baby showers and kids birthday parties and been "auntie" over and over again?
Have you had friends tell you, "you can have mine" or "my kids will be birth control for you" or "you dont want to have kids, they tie you down" or a million other things that are meant to make you feel better but just make you horribly sad?
Do you get reminded every 25 days that you are a failure at the thing that your body is naturally supposed to be engineered to do?
Do you see the look of disappointment in your mother's face?
Are you the odd man out on Mother's Day?
Have you waited your whole life to be part of "the mommy club" but no matter what "you can never understand because you don't have kids."

Do you know that "Once you pass 40, time is pitiless. You have about a 5 percent chance of getting pregnant in any single ovulation cycle and By age 43, a woman's chance of pregnancy plummets to 1 or 2 percent." (source)

and that I will be 41 in 2 months.

The level of pain, agony and frustration.
You can't possibly know.

If you do know. I would love to hear from you.  If you have been through this but then gotten pregnant than trust me, you don't know although you probably can imagine.

Of course, even with all this, I am still a Happy People.  And I know that everyone has pain and this is mine.  I am so lucky, I am so fortunate and I have so much to live for. I just have moments when I feel like I am flying in the dark with my broken wing.

13,000 homeless kids in San Diego last year.

This number is shocking to me.  I found this out when I had a meeting at San Diego Youth Services (SYDS).  This means that throughout 2011 13,000 kids came though their system.  Some live in group homes, some get placed with Foster Parents, but they are all AT RISK.

I met with the CEO and Program Director of SDYS last week to discuss hosting art classes for the at risk youth that they serve.  I want to get programs going even before we open the art center. This will not be the only group that benefits from the Art Center.  There will be many others and we plan to use technology to be able to reach anyone anywhere!

This is how I see it:

If you don't have a Mom or Dad, who is taking photos of you and documenting your life?

I want to do "About Me" pages/art with these kids.  They can come to the Charity Wings Art Center and we can take their photo and print it if they like, then guide them through an "About Me" creative project.

Here is my "About Me" page today...

I think ideally it would be something like a scrapbook/art journal page/canvas, something like that.  But I really want it to be something that they might keep through their life journey and be able to look back on when they are older.

Who knows what talent a child might discover if they just have the opportunity.

or what skill they might find for coping with the life they are living today.

But ultimately, i hope it will be something that they keep through their life journey and be able to look back on when they are older.  I hope they will remember who they were today.

We learn so much when we look at where we came from.  It reminds us how strong and resilient we really are.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CHARITY WINGS ART CENTER AND WHAT IT IS HERE 

sometimes you can't shake the ugly crap that happens to you.

I truly believe that our experiences shape who we are, why we do what we do, and most importantly our personalities.

The things that happen to us, good and bad create "thens"...

What is a "then"?

Its the other half to the "if"...

I learned about "if, then" in 5th grade at Flora Vista Elementary school in 1982 at before school computer class.  Yep, my mom put me in computer class in 5th grade. She really had high hopes for me.  Actually it was me and my little brother who was in 3rd grade I guess.  We will just say we were gifted and lucky to have an incredible mom.

Ok, so back to "if, then"

If A then B

It's crazy but our lives are all about reacting to the "if,thens"

If I want to buy a dress, then I need to make money.

If I want to see my friends, then I need to make plans with them.

If I need to make time for art, then I need to .... You get it!  :)

Sometimes the "if, then" is something we just have in our head and its totally wrong. It's something that someone in our lives has made us believe is true but really, it no longer applies.

To be less cryptic. Here is a just scratching the surface example:

In my past relationship I felt like if I went out with my friends, then I would have to deal with an upset significant other.

Now I don't have that relationship anymore but the "if, then" still applies. 

why? It's not fair!  And unfortunately it works both ways.  We react to others and other react to us.

"if" I want to change this reaction, "then" I need to understand it and "then" I can work on fixing it.

See how many "if,thens" you are automatically succumbing to and make a change!

U B U. This is my new favorite

So I really get things stuck in my head. Don't you? 

If you know me at all, you know I am a HAPPY PEOPLE.  This came about several years ago when my friend Brooke called me and said she heard on the radio a list of ten things Happy People do.  I was like, "I'm a Happy People!" and Brooke said she was too. So that is what we set out to be.  Now, this was a tough time in both our lives. Crappy relationships and such but through it all, we just kept remembering that we are Happy People.

So now, I was at a neighborhood party with a dear sweet friend Rachel and her daughter showed up wearing a figure skating/gymnast/synchronized swimming/baton twirler/who knows what else outfit.  She is a super cute little girl so it just worked and Rachel said, "I saw her leaving the house wearing this and I just said, you go girl.  You be You."

So that is my new thing. 

You Be You.

Or U.B.U.

In fact, there is a whole bunch that has spawned off of this....

• U.B.U.2
• MeBMe3
• WeBWe3
• HeBHe4

I know the numbers dont make sense, they are kind of a funny we went with!  But anyway.

Smile, be a Happy People and U.B.U.!

Me and the Queen of Craft Wars :)

I am going to make cards with the world!

Well, Andrea and I are going together.

 Lisa (on the left) is just a bonus in this photo :)

On October 6, 2012 We will travel to the land of Los Angeles.  We are going to be at CRAFTED at the Port of Los Angeles

playing with people who love what we love

HANDMADE STUFFS!


If you will be in the area, please come see us in the Hydrangea Hippo Booth.

I will be teaching a 2-card make and take by Flower Soft. Make one for yourself and one for us to send to troops overseas!

and we will be LIVE STREAMING during the Creative Cynchronicity World Cardmaking Day event! 

And because we love  good raffle we will be pulling a winner each day for a basket worth $400!! in the

"Stop to Smell the Flowers with Charity Wings" Raffle

SO PLEASE CLICK HERE TO BUY A TICKET!

and support your favorite Traveling Princess Charity Fairy :)

muah!

I'm really very selfish.

People gravitate to what they enjoy, what excites them, and what makes them feel good.

For me, it feels good to give.  That is why I do it.

It is the best feeling for me when people tell me how happy something I have done makes them.  Not just other charities, but my friends, family, co workers etc.

When I can go out of my way to do something for someone, when I can make something happen even though I have to get really resourceful and stay up late and not pee and not eat...  well, that part kind of sucks... but when I can make a sacrifice to do something for someone else...

Well, it is the best feeling for me.

So it is selfish. (shhh! don't tell) It's more for me than for anyone else.  Everyone else just gets a little bit of the happy that I feel.