Baby Aliya Fundraiser

Dec 10 - Back at the end of October, my good friend had a sweet little baby who was born with lots of complications. She came really early and was less than 3 lbs and had the cord wrapped around her neck 3 times when she was born! She had to be transferred to McKay right after birth, and then ended up at Primary Children's Hospital because she was having problems with her kidneys and eyes. They learned she had a very rare syndrome called Wolf Hirschhorn Syndrome, which causes all sorts of different problems and will be something they have to deal with for her whole life. (You can read more about sweet baby Aliya here . You can even donate to her family!)

My friend, Tarasha, has been so amazing through all of this and the best mommy to baby Aliya. All of us really wanted to help, but didn't really know how. We made a big poster telling her how much we all loved her while she was in the hospital and then gathered supplies and put together cute bags for her girls of fun things to do while they were traveling back and forth between here and Primary's. But, we still wanted to do something a lot bigger. We knew they were going to have a lot of medical expenses, so my friend, Emily, headed up a big fundraiser and a bunch of us got involved helping. We didn't really know how much help it would be, but we figured anything would help. It turned out to be an amazing success! We held a craft boutique, silent auction and bake sale. So many businesses and people in the community donated. It was amazing!

I was on the committee over the craft boutique. I had no idea what I was in for! I think we thought at first we could just gather donations from crafty people, but that wasn't the case. We ended up making a lot of what we sold ourselves and having to get donations so that we could make things, and it turned into a lot more hours than I ever anticipated. As the fundraiser got closer, I was at my friend Barbi's house more than I was home! I would get kids off to school and such and then take Avery (and Rylee on non-school days) over to Barbi's and we would work on stuff until the kids were getting home from school. Then I would go home and do dinner and family stuff and go back after the kids were in bed and stay until midnight or later. Darren was very helpful and never complained about how much I was gone. I really appreciated that! It was a lot of fun getting together and making crafts, but just started to be a lot! But, when I saw it come together, it was SO worth it!

The day of we had a ton of people come through and we were able to sell almost everything we had. We made over $10,000 for their family and it felt great to help someone so deserving. It also felt pretty nice to be done! I loved doing it and would do it again in a heartbeat though!
This is the main committee of ladies who helped with the fundraiser. They are all in my ward (or were until it got split :( ) They are so amazing and I loved working with them! Back Row: Me, Natalie, Julie, Emily, Barbi, Karen, Jen and Jenn
Front: Jen, Karen, Mandy and AmeliaThe set-up - All the tables in the middle section and along the back wall were the craft boutique. The far side was the bake sale and a family in our ward also made cotton candy all day and sold it. The wall where I am taking it from was all stuff for the silent auction. This was all the stuff that was for the silent auction. We had some awesome stuff including a trip to Hawaii!!!
At the front was a little table where the family sat and had pictures of Aliya. It was really cute!
This was all the baby stuff that we had and some of the MANY bows.This was our jewelry table. A couple more views of all the stuff...
When the sale started, the place was packed!
Some more stuff... We made all the magnet boards and also the glass blocks. We made them banks that said "I hope they call me on a mission" with a cute little missionary on them and a tie tied around them. They were our biggest seller!!! This banner was so cute! I think we all wanted to buy it! We made a TON of different little blocks like this with different sayings. I had never mod podged before, but I am pretty much a pro now!!! Some snowmen we made... I wish I would have documented every project we did! It was pretty amazing! We had some countdown books that counted down to Christmas and some cute quiet books for church that were about the articles of faith and the proclamation on the family. We also made some countdown blocks that were really popular, too. We made some cute recipe card magnet boards and some small magnet boards to hold a photo or two. We did some conversation jars and lots of cute subway art. We also did a million different mod podge projects! We had a lot of wood donated so we had to use it somehow! We had so much stuff and then there was a lot of projects that were donated as well. These candy cane bath salts were super cute. We didn't make these ones, but I thought they were a great idea!
Some of the yummy bake sale stuff!
These were the girls I worked with. Emily, me and Barbi headed up the craft boutique. They did a lot more than I did! They were amazing and I had a great time working with and learning from them. I was so glad I had them!!!