The Safelight Project made great headway in the past two weeks, as case sets started coming in, and checks arrived. I was stunned at the amounts on several of them, in the hundreds of dollars! So much so that I can announce that we have exceeded our financial goal!! To say thank you seems so inadequate, but to Dorothy F, Janet S, and Tina W, you are all amazing. The three of you funded over half the project! Special thanks also to Kay, Susan and Vicki, your generosity is much appreciated. Those donations along with a lot of $5-$50 donations fully funded this project for the year. Then, a donation arriving yesterday from Carroll W blew us past our goal by an amazing amount. The project now has $1785 to spend on the spa bags for deliveries this time and over the next few months.

It only took 20 minutes to spend almost $700 for supplies to complete the first 36 Safelight Spa Bags. With such a great initial response to the call, I was able to order canvas bags and enough spa type items for the insides to get the project rolling. A few of the items only came in cases of 24, so I have a bit of a head start on the next dozen. It is a bit hard to see, but the total on this order $457.96. I keep all the receipts in case I ever need to prove where the money went.

I ordered tote bags with two different color handles this time. The black and the red looked like the better quality colors than the navy the last time we did this. So this time I only ordered these two colors. Ordering in bulk dozens saves some money over the individual price. These came from Tote Bag Factory. The first 48 are on the way, and this gets me a $5 coupon to use on the next order. With shipping, each canvas bag costs $4.47 each.

So, we have 5 bags delivered, and the items to do 36 more on the way. After that, I’ll order enough supplies to do another 36 in the spring, and a final 36 in the fall. This will bring the total women’s bags to 113 for the year. The women’s spa bags will contain 8 products, with a total cost of $14.47 each. Total cost for the year for the women’s bags will be $1635.11.

I’ll also do 5 men’s bags. I found a duffel style bag for $9, and will put 6 items inside, along with two cards. Each one will cost $16.50, total 82.50 for all. The men’s bags will look similar to the ones we have done in the past. They don’t get case sets, as those are too feminine in nature. I get men’s aviator sunglasses and put them in either hard shell or purchased zipper cases in solid colors. They also get new socks and men’s care items.

Case sets are starting to come in as well, and we’ll need 108 for the next three deliveries. Some have asked what my deadline is, and we have plenty of time. Since I am going to make shipments of 36 at a time over 3 deliveries, I can take sets for a couple of months. I’d like to have all I need by the beginning of May. This will allow me to make up the bags for the last two deliveries all at the same time, and I’ll know what I need to make myself to complete the project. These cases with wonderful prints arrived this week from Carole L.

These arrived from Judy on Friday in pretty batiks, and a couple had some wonderful patchwork.

I hope my stamping readers are doing a bit of card making. You know, you do not have to be a stamper to make cards. I had a bunch of blank note cards that have been sitting in a closet for years. Adding some embellishments make them special. On this one, I added a glittery ladybug. I had four of these to embellish.

On the left here, a nice note card with a flower pot that is blank inside is a good base for embellishment. On the right, I’ve added some washi tape across the bottom and some gel dots on the side.

I found some Dream Big tape, and put that on another card along with some star stickers. On the right, gel hearts adorn the same card. I had 8 of these to embellish.

I have stamps for the inside sentiments, but a handwritten note or a poem printed on your computer’s printer work well. I also stamped the envelopes.

For some other note cards, I wanted to use a very large stamp that has a butterfly sentiment. I find the stamping platform is the best idea here. I place the card on the base and position the stamp on top of it.

Then close the lid, picking up the stamp. Open it up again to ink.

Then close the lid again and press to stamp the card. It is upside down here so it will come out on the correct side of the card.

The nice thing is I can do a lot of the same thing, and not have to reposition the stamp. If I don’t get a good stamp, I can go over it again and the stamp will line up perfectly. Like this time, the word butterfly didn’t come out well.

A second stamping over the first fills in the blank areas, and lines up perfectly.

I had three of these cards and thought the sentiment went really well with them.

If you noticed on the platform, as I was stamping the insides the cards separated along the fold. So, I remounted the pieces on cardstock. I added some gel dots to the card fronts.

On the backside a little stamp says ‘inking of you’.

So, by using up some blank note cards, I quickly had 16 more cards to add to the stack for the first round of bags. I plan to have 36 bags on this next delivery, so I need 72 cards. Right now I have 40 that I’ve made, so more than halfway there for the next delivery, but we’ll need a total of 196 more to complete the project.

The tote bags arrived on Friday. The Dollar Tree order should be here this week, but they almost always are late, so I don’t expect it until next week. My ‘informed delivery’ on the post office box says I have packages on the way, so I think we’ll have enough case sets for the first shipment by the end of the month. Financially, originally I had a goal of $1400 for the bags with fewer items. With your amazing support, the project has had $1785 come in! The plan is now at $1717.61 for the whole project for the year going back to 8 items in each bag. Funds left over will be used to provide special holiday treats for those in residence at the time, like the Valentine Treat Bags I posted about a few years ago. Keep sewing and stamping, and send when you can. This project would not be possible without your help. Thank you!

Don’t we have an amazing community of readers?!!