"The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too light..." -Thomas Paine

Unfortunately, John and I just didn't have $25,000 laying around to pay for our adoption. Most people probably don't! Sooo, we had to work at building up our accounts by "adoption projects." There are oodles of fundraising ideas out there, but these seemed to be most "do-able" for us (even though some of them nearly killed us!)

Our most ongoing adoption fundraiser was my "Charming Prints" pictures. I take black and white photos of children and hand-tint them. You can go to my site to see what they were if you'd like though... Charming Prints.

Other things we have done are Rummage Sales(!), a strawberry pie sale, selling angel pins, miscellaneous baking or cleaning for people, John has helped people with their computers, etc. It has been awesome seeing God bring in so much money for us, and seeing Him guide us each step of the way through our adoption journey. Never in our wildest dreams would we have thought any of this would have happened in just one year.

In November, Mom Fisher reserved a booth at the Sparta craft fair for her nurses' scrubs. Since she already had the space, we made a bunch of other crafts to sell for our adoption fund. We made some adorable stuffed felt "turkeys," and some "Packer" and "Christmas" angel pins/ornaments. Besides Packer angels, we also have USA and Ukrainian angels.

I also taught a calligraphy class out of my home to a few gals from church. It has been fun, and a very stress-free way to add a few dollars a week to the adoption fund.

March 6 there was another craft show in Sparta where Mom Fisher had another booth reserved for her nurses' scrubs. So, I made a bunch of Origami Photo Albums to sell. They sold pretty well, but mostly just right away in the morning when the "hard core" crafters shopped. John's grandma had also made up a bunch of crocheted pot-holders for the show. I was pleasantly surprised how many of those sold, but we do have a lot of leftovers. It got pretty quiet by early afternoon, but hey! A penny saved is a penny earned, and we'll just have plenty of stuff ready for the next show!

Need some ideas for yourself? Here are some of my favorite links. You might want to also join Yahoo's fundraisingforadoption discussion board. Great support, great ideas!

Affording Adoption

A Mother's Love

Help Me Adopt

Jill Savage's fundraising story

Kingdom Kids Adoption Ministries

Butter Braids Fundraising

More interested in grants? Here are some that we've found:

The Potter's Hands

List of grants available

Dillon International

Gift of Adoption Fund

Shaohannah's Hope

God's Grace Adoption Ministry