create a secret society of optimists and do-gooders

So cool to see this idea spreading!

I just had to share my new creation – I never made this kind of thing before and it turned out well. I had made a t-shirt quilt for my guest room, and it turned out that the sleeves from those shirts could be cut into 6” squares for a child’s quilt. Since plain sleeves are sort of boring for a kid, I embroidered little monkeys onto the white/beige squares. The whole thing is backed with flannel. And on its way to my friend’s Project Linus chapter! I hope it makes some kid/family smile, at least for a moment!

I have to give a shoutout to Sublime Stitching (www.sublimestitching.com) – Jenny Hart makes the COOLEST embroidery patterns on earth!

I almost forgot to say, I also got the t-shirts for the project at Goodwill, so hopefully they get a bit of a leg-up as well!

I haven’t done this one, but I saw someone doing it last year and I am still inspired by it:

If you have been to a Kohl’s department store, you’ve probably seen that they always have a display of very cute stuffed animals for $5 each, with all the proceeds benefitting children’s hospitals. So that’s a nice thing right there. The stuffed animals are always so adorable, but I’ve rarely bought any because I don’t know any little kids and frankly my dogs would not appreciate them because they don’t squeak!

Anyway, once I was in line behind two women who were buying several stuffed animals along with their regular purchases, and the cashier made a comment about how some kid was very lucky to be getting so many toys. The ladies said “No, we buy these all year, whenever we shop here, then at Christmas we donate them all to Toys For Tots.”

So it’s the gift that gives TWICE! Brilliant! I can’t wait for that Kohl’s to open in my hometown now – it’s almost done!

My mom and I mailed out 3 big boxes of blankets today! That was fun!

And, I found a big bag of yarn for $1.50 at a garage sale today. Perfect for more blankets!

This is one of my favorite causes, primarily because I enjoy making blankets very much and most members of my family have already received way too many as gifts!

The chapter I give to not only provides blankets for terminally ill kids, but also to abused women’s shelters, and to a hospital on an Indian reservation in Montana. I’m told that the Indian mothers who gave birth in the hospital were stealing towels because they had nothing to wrap their babies in. So, I enjoy finding soft baby yarn on sale and whipping up a few blankies for them now and then.

For official members only! I’ve created a “calling card” for you to leave behind whenever you’ve done a good deed anonymously. Perhaps this will generate some interest in our cause! And add some fun for us – be stealthy, don’t let anyone see you leave the card, or your secret identity will be revealed!

To get to the file, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SSODG/ and sign in, then click on the “Files” link on the left side of the page. The file is in Microsoft Word format, and can be either printed out directly onto business cards (Avery 8371) or printed onto normal paper and cut out manually.

Have fun!!! And please PM me (or send a note through the newsgroup) if you have any trouble with the file.

Okay, let me know if you can get into this link – it will be a private, members only group (to allow me to screen for spam, trolls, and pessimists). http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SSODG/

Since KonaFab’s acronym (SSODG) made me think of “soggy dog,” I thought that would be a great nickname for us. And now we have a cute mascot! Xuxa is a perfect representative of our mission as she is ALWAYS smiling and wagging and brightening the day of whomever she meets. And, in this photo, she is soggy!

If you can’t get in to look at the site (and want to officially join the newsgroup), send an e-mail to the SSODG webdork at SSODG-subscribe@yahoogroups.com!