Calling Soul Children to a Special Creative Day

  It is so nice to have time at our cabin during this snowy weather.  Its wonderful to have this beautiful area to create and renew.  In contrast to the snow I am so excited to share our newly released Soul friend, Kate who was photographed in sunny California by her mom’s best friend and our board member and Soul mom, Jodi.  This beautiful teen and her mom and sister truly have a beauty and charm that radiates.  Her full story will soon be on our gallery.  I am following her progress thru Caring Bridge and yesterday it showed her visiting the set of Grey’s Anatomy smiling with “Meredith”.  Time and again I realize that the human spirit can shine so brightly even during times of intense physical challenge.  Working with Soul helps give me a perspective on life that hopefully helps me appreciate the joy of good health and allows for greater compassion for those who face great challenges.

Our photographers have been doing a beautiful job.  I try to review each shoot as it comes in but once in a while Megan and her crew of volunteers move so quickly that I miss one.  I had not had the pleasure of reviewing Heather’s latest adult shoot that was completed during the Christmas holiday time, its wonderful.  Just in the last few days Leo, Dawn, Shon, and Erin and Bill have completed work with our families.  The caring and skill that is shared is a beautiful gift.

We are planning a special gathering on Saturday, Feb 11 for Soul children, their siblings and other young family members as we are creating something special for all the Soul photographers.  We will need a good turnout as we now have 40 photographers.  Please give us a call or email if you are interested in having your children participate.  I know the photographers will be so touched by this gesture.  206-297-0885.

Our yearly album making party is scheduled for April 17 .  We will work all day, from 9 till 9 to create enough albums to last the entire year.  With the increased number of requests we will be working hard.  We are looking for precise crafts people and artisans to make these beautiful books.  We give clear instructions and good guidance so that each album is stunning.  Please mark your calendars.  We ask that attendees consider donating a sheet of beautiful paper that is used to form the cover.  If you can join us we would be most grateful and if not your paper donation would still be welcomed.  If you are more of the type that would like to help but feel your skills are more in the cooking arena or clean up we would also appreciate that type of help.  Our albums are a big part of the gift package to our families and we receive so many compliments from those who receive them.  Please call or email so that we know we will have the support we need.

Lew is already working on next year’s Artist Sale.  It truly takes careful planning to have grand success like last year.  Some things we are proud of and will concentrate on to make even better are:  the young artist’s section, they were terrific and many more than generous with the funds they generated.  The wreaths were a huge success so we will add one more day to the wreath making extravaganza and will hope to even more greens donations, I think we can sell more of the smaller size wreaths and we are looking to creating swags that would be especially appropriate for grave sites as we had a number of requests for those specifically.  The final area that was really great was the number of items that were donated outright by the artists, with 100% of their sales price going to Soul.  If you have friends who create lovely jewelry, pottery, etc please let them know that we would be so grateful if they would consider donating a piece of two.  Hats off to my friends Patrice, Patsy, Walt and Carol who made many items that they donated, their generosity was wonderful.

Time to get back to the cabin to create for next years sale.  This is the time of year when my biz is a little slower that I have to make most all of the art that I will be showing.  I am grateful every time I work for the thoughtfulness of all of who share their aluminum cans and bottle caps.  I am always happy to receive cans with great graphics, please keep me in mind for Peace Tea cans, Arizona Tea, Brisk Tea, V-8, unusual beer, soda and juice cans, Squirt and Sunkist are great too.  For bottle caps I really can always use lighter colored ones, yellows, bright red, light blues, lime green and those that are eye catching with animals, stars, hands and bulls eyes.

I close in love and peace, Lynette