craft hope

Well that was a whirlwind. Thank you so much to all of you that supported the shop by either donating or shopping! You exceeded our expectations thousands of times over. Over $30k raised from the crafting community to benefit Doctors Without Borders in Haiti. The shop is still open for it’s final week and will close on Sunday. We are finishing up listing the last few items this evening. The designers from the Craft Hope book (in stores in August), published by Lark Crafts, have graciously donated their items to the shop. Go ahead, have a peek. Get something handmade while benefiting such a worthwhile cause while you can.

{Photo credit :: Bella Gioielli}

We just wrapped up Project 6, benefiting the Orphan Foundation’s Red Scarf Program. What an incredible response with over 420 scarves collected! I was able to see a few of them on flickr and through my email, but will contact them to see if we can get some photos of the piles of scarves. Thank you all so very much for clicking those needles and making red scarves. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

You can see a few Craft Hope superstars rockin’ the red scarves above! Thank you ladies. You look fabulous!! To see their awesome photo shoot, go to our flickr group. Pretty funny.

{Photo credit :: Hollis Queen}

A red and aqua photo, I couldn’t resist. Look at all of those beautiful red scarves.

Our next project will be announced very soon.

And without further ado, GORGEOUS pictures from Carin at Margaret’s Hope Chest. Here are your quilts from Project 5!!!

Look at those sweet faces. Wrapped in LOVE.

Friends, thank you. Your willingness to give when called upon humbles me and brings me to tears. Every. Single. Time.

Good morning! Due to some lovely and generous donations from Lark Books and Amy Butler, we have added one last update to the Craft Hope shop. There are 10 gorgeous mini quilts from the upcoming book Pretty Little Mini Quilts, three bags from Amy Butler (the actual bags – not patterns!), autographed books from Amanda Soule, and more. The shop will close its doors for good on Sunday night, so be sure to browse one more time and make sure you haven’t missed that perfect something.

Thank you again for all of your support of Craft Hope for Haiti and for helping the shop go out with a bang!

Happy First Birthday to Craft Hope! Thanks to all of you and your loving work, Craft Hope has been in operation for one year. It has been a rewarding year of blankets and hats, dolls and sock monkeys, dresses and scarves, of a new book that has gone to print, and of an outpouring of support for people who need help in Haiti, Nicaragua, India, Mexico, and here at home. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you have done with us.

The Craft Hope for Haiti shop on Etsy has been a success beyond our craziest dreams. We want to thank all of you for being a part of it. We have a few more donations that we will be listing in the shop today, and then we will be closing it down. Running a shop on Etsy that draws from so many sellers is simply not something that we can manage longer term, and we hope you understand. It has been an amazing time and we’ve gotten to know so many people who have been involved with donating items, buying them, and often both. As I’ve said before, the crafting community is full of wonderful people and we’re lucky to be a part of it. We will spend the next few weeks wrapping up the sales and paperwork associated with the shop. We are so proud of the $30,000 that we have raised together for Doctors Without Borders. It’s a remarkable gift from so many people.

We plan to forward the funds to Doctors Without Borders in approximately 45-50 days, due to some unforeseen delays at Paypal. Because of the huge volume of transactions that flowed into the Paypal account in such a short period of time, Paypal has put a hold on the funds, other than to refund to customers as necessary. While we’re not happy about this at all, we do understand that Paypal has those security measures in place for good reason. The 45 day delay will allow us to show that any unhappy customers have been treated fairly and that there will not be chargebacks to the account that would leave Paypal holding the bag. At that time, we will review the account with them and arrange for a funds transfer. If they are still holding funds after that review, then we will force the issue with them and ask for your voices, as necessary. However, at this point, we feel that giving them 45 days is reasonable, given the whirlwind nature of the fundraising and the risk of removing that much money from the account before potential chargebacks have surfaced. Frankly, we will feel better sending the funds knowing that everyone has received what they purchased or has been refunded their money. That way, we’ve all achieved our goals. We will let you know if and when it’s time to start making noise.

So the question is, where do we go from here? Craft Hope’s other projects will continue as they always have. The Orphan Foundation scarf project has an approaching deadline of February 14th and over 300 people participating. The next project is in the planning stages. The Craft Hope book is at the printer and will be released in August. There are all sorts of ways to help coming up.

We would like to continue to operate a shop for fundraising, not just for emergency needs like Craft Hope for Haiti, but for ongoing support of children in need. We’ll be doing some research on different ways of doing so and getting everything set up properly. We want to offer a craft marketplace that allows sellers to find a wide audience for their wares and donate part of the sales to charity while still benefitting from their own hard work and talent. So stay tuned while we put all of that together.

Thank you again for all of your support of the Craft Hope for Haiti shop as well as our other projects. None of this would happen without you. Remember – the shop is open until Monday. Shop while you can!

In gratitude,

Jade and Sarah