Update on Kyla...& New Name Pillows...

Hello, Everyone....

Just a quick update to let you know that the little girl we spoke of in our last posting...Kyla....went home from her heart surgery and is recovering as planned! Thank God for this miracle in her life! Please keep her in your prayers as her healing and recovering continues!

Thank you for all of the thoughts and prayers for Kyla & her family!

Keri has began making name pillows and selling them on Etsy as a way to do to things! Number one....we are able to use the scraps that we have leftover from the gowns! The fabrics are so cute that we hate to waste a single piece! Keri had this awesome idea to make these pillows which are so precious and such a great gift! (way to go, Keri!)

They are available through her etsy shop at http://www.chasingbirdies.etsy.com/ !

She made one and mailed a pillow and a gown and mailed them to Kyla and her grandmother called and expressed sincere thanks!

We would love to hear from you if you know of anyone who would like to make a donation to our cause so that we may continue to show God's love through being able to make gowns and get them to children enduring a hospital stay! This is a great outreach and we are thankful for the lives we have been able to touch through this. Thank you to all of those who have supported us by volunteering time, energy & money! You are greatly appreciated!

Sharon

Please Pray for Kyla...

This precious little girl had open heart surgery last Wednesday on April 8th. She is still in the CV-ICU and could use any extra prayers you can send her. She is Sarah Swan's age (only 3 weeks difference) and even though we've never met her, she holds a special place in our hearts as we know what it is to have a child having heart surgery!

Please lift her up in prayer if you would. Her family would greatly appreciate it!

Sincerely,

Sharon Swan

Gowns Delivered

We delivered 31 hospital gowns to Medical City Dallas Children's Hospital. My amazing friend Becky went with me to help take pictures. My friend Chrissie was also on duty today. She is a pedatric nurse. She has been a tremendous help. All the nurses were so awesome and loved the gowns. I am so happy to be able to make this ministry a reality and see how excited the nurses were to see the gowns. So I know the patients will be twice as happy to get the gowns. If you recieved a gown today please email pictures to heartfeltcouture@yahoo.com. We would LOVE to see them and post them!

Delivery Scheduled

Our next delivery date for Medical City Dallas Children's Hospital is set for April 11th. I will be taking 31 gowns to special children at this hospital for Easter. We have had countless help through this last month. Thank you all for your hard work. I know each of these gowns has been prayed over many, many times over.

Also, I am selling on my website http://www.chasingbirdies.etsy.com/ a name pillow. When you buy a pillow you are also paying for a hospital gown for a child in the hospital. No profit will be made from the sell of these pillow. Whatever money I have leftover will also, go to make a name pillow for a child in the hospital. I will be using the scraps from the gowns. Each pillow will be a different size due to the length of the name. It is super cute and would make a great gift!

Please also, pray for Sharon's daughter Sarah. She is having some medical issues. Pray for this sweet girl with a tremendous heart.

Next cutting night March 13th at 6:30p-9 at Compass Christian Church in Colleyville. Dinner will be provided. So please RSVP if you would like to come and help make hospital gowns for Children's Medical City Dallas.

35 Wishes....Success!

I was so lucky to have 2 special helpers in putting together the items for 35 wishes! Jason & Sarah LOVED it! I told them that as they put the boxes together, to take their time and place the items inside and pray over each and every teddy bear and box for it to be a blessing to whatever child ends up getting it. Pray for their health and recovery from heart surgery! I had tears in my eyes as we put all the boxes together with love. Jason kissed every teddy bear before putting them in the boxes. Sarah knows that she had heart surgery because we talk about it and try to prepare her for the fact that she will soon have more heart surgery. She said "Mommy, when I have my heart surgery, will I get a teddy bear?" My answer was...."of course!" So, she's excited now. She is willing to have heart surgery in exchange for a teddy bear! haha I think that's both cute and funny and even a little sad.

The day of delivery, one of my best friends, Shanna, went with me to help! She was SUCH a help! I loved getting to spend the day with her and hang out and be able to do something nice for others to be a blessing at Christmas! It was a great day for both of us.

When we got to Texas Children's Hospital, there were NO carts available. We had to wait for about 30 minutes and still didn't have a cart. The valet parking attendants were so nice. They didn't make us move our car. We got to leave it right out front so we could make several trips. ...with a wheel chair! We had to load the boxes into a wheelchair and Sarah's tiny umbrella stroller to carry them to the elevators and up 15 floors to deliver. It was comical, to say the least! When we got upstairs, we met the child life specialist for the 15th floor. Her name is Kate and she was SO helpful and sweet! I am so glad to have her as a contact. She came downstairs with us and brought a wagon and picked up the rest of the boxes and hospital gowns. She LOVED the gowns and thought that it was a really neat idea!

Below are some photos from packing and delivery! I can't wait to do this again!

20 wishes!

I went with my friend Chrissie to Medical City Children's Hospital on Wednesday to deliver the 20 gowns to that hospital. Chrissie is an amazing pediatric nurse. I was really great to see where these were going and to also see what the gowns look like that they have now. It made me want to make a gown for every child in the hospital.

The gowns they have now are very very thin, and are just a plain greenish/blue. They didn't look very comfortable at all.

Brittany(holding the hospital gowns above) in Life Services at Medical City was great! She loved the gowns. She said that the kids are going to love them. It really put everything into perspective for me. My girls are very healthy, so I cannot imagine what Sharon and these other parents go through. It was worth every night that I stayed up until 2 in the morning sewing the labels on. Or the days me and my husband ironed for 4 hours. It is the least I can do for these amazing families.

I am also going to rework the pattern for the gowns for Easter. That way it can really be more comfortable and convenient for the kids.

If you got one of the hospital gowns please email any feedback to www.heartfeltcouture@yahoo.com

I can't wait to see what God has in store for Sharon when she delivers her 40 and the hat boxes as well!

PFS is AWESOME!!!!!

I want to thank Professional Flooring Supply for their extremely generous donation they gave us today!

We are now going to be able to buy all the hat boxes, toys, and other fun stuff for the precious kids at Texas Children's Hospital and Medical City Dallas Children's Hospital. I was completely overwhelmed by their kind hearts and loving spirit today. They really went above and beyond for Heartfelt Couture. These kids are going to look extra special on Christmas in their gowns because some very special people care enough to help lift their spirits. God has answered my prayers today through several very special people!

Also with Professional Flooring Supply's donation we are going to be able to do this at Easter for possibly 3 more hospitals. If you are reading this and know of a hospital you would like to nominate to receive hospital gowns please email us at heartfeltcouture@yahoo.com. We do one wing in the hospital so if you also have a wing that you would like to include please let us know.

God is amazing and I have tons to be Thankful for! Visit PFS at http://www.professionalflooring.com/

-Keri

First Cutting Night 2008

We finished our first cutting night last night! It was very successful. We had 12 people there. I felt so blessed to have so many people wanting to help these children! One of my friends that came is a pediatric nurse. She said that these gowns will definitely brighten these children's stay in the hospital.

We were able to get all the gowns cut out plus some. We will have 55 gowns ready by Dec 1st. We are going to give gowns to Texas Children's Hospital and also a hospital in Dallas.

We had several people ask when our next cutting night will be Probably not this year but I think doing more gowns for Easter is a definite possibility.(it takes days of prep work on my end to even get organized for a cutting night)

We had a blast last night! Some people learned to sew and we had a Master sewer there that taught me a few things! It was a really great night to just fellowship with others for a fabulous cause!

Heartfelt Couture ROCKS!!!

Praise the Lord!

We are so thankful for all of the people and businesses who have offered to help us! We are so blessed by each of you!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you soooooooo much! 35 Wishes will be a reality by Christmas and soon after, we may get into just about every children's hospital in the country!!!

Cutting Out the Fabric Night Nov 7th from 6-10p

We are going to have a Cutting Out the Fabric Night on November 7th from 6p-10p. Anyone who can come please email us at heartfeltcouture@yahoo.com. It will be at Compass Christian Church @ Highland Meadows in Colleyville, TX. If you can make it please do! Also if you have a sewing machine please bring it so we can get all of the gowns done at once! This will be a fun night to fellowship and make some fantastic gowns for these precious children of God!

Keri's Working OVERTIME!

Let's give the girl some LOVE!!! She would kill me for posting this but I just want everyone to know what an awesome lady Keri Abshier is! Since a little over a week ago when this all came about, she has been getting donations, gotten us a discount at Hobby Lobby for our fabric, gotten a tax exempt number, called the IRS about getting set up for a non-profit organization, set up a sewing party at her church, made numerous phone calls and took care of 2 sick little girls!!!!!!!!!!!! (and I'm sure I'm leaving SOMETHING out like laundry, cooking, shopping, etc.!)

Let's give the girl a hand!

I am so thankful for her and all of the hard work she's done! We still haven't gotten to "meet" yet but I can't wait to hug her for her hard work, determination and awesomely sweet attitude!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Keri!

We are so thankful for anyone who is and has given us donations of any kind! We are so excited that 35 wishes are going to come true! Please spread the word and we'd love to get more and more people involved! We have planted a seed and now we want to see it grow!!!!

Please email us if you are willing to donate anything we may be able to use...including cash or Hobby Lobby Gift Cards. We can always use those for more fabric!

Love to all!

Sharon

Our sample is finished

I finished the first hospital gown last night!! It is going to be easier than I expected which is BLOWING MY MIND! Our deadline to have 40 finished is December 1st and I think we are going to have them finished in 2 weeks! God is good! Now this is a sample so it is not perfect but it is a starting place and the fabric is not as fabulous as I am going to do, but you get the picture. I am thinking ruffles for girls!

For those of you who are helping we are going to have a "Cutting out the Fabric Night" at my church Compass Christian Church at Highland Meadows in Colleyville soon. Date TBA. This should really help with getting them finished early. One of my really good friends just bought a sewing machine, is going to learn to sew so she can help! What an amazing Godly woman! I am going to include more stories like those because I believe God works in amazing ways and you never know how he is going to use you!

Also, I am not a photographer like Sharon so my pictures will always look just plain sad. But you get the jist of what it is!

We are going to need around 20 yards of fabric for the boys size med/large, 10 yards of fabric for the boys size small. We need 20 yards of fabric for the girls size med/large, and 10 yards of fabric for the girls size small. I need all of this by next week because I will need to wash and dry all of the fabric before cutting night. Pray that some how we will get the funding.

Heartfelt Couture...reaching hearts through sewing hands!

Heartfelt Couture is a ministry effort between Sharon Swan & Keri Abshier! Our goal is to reach children who are staying in the hospital by giving them the gift of a handmade hospital gown! Many children staying in hospitals at some point must walk through a hospital or in the hallways of their floor wearing a hospital gown. Because of Sarah, we've realized that some of them are not thrilled with the "look" of typical hospital gowns! Sarah refused to wear one at 4 years old and with that rebellion.....a whole ministry has begun!

We are in need of volunteers to donate fabric, time, efforts, talents, marketing, word of mouth advertising, etc! If you have some talent, there is a way we could benefit from it for these children!

We realize that there are other ways to help children in hospitals, but this idea is close to our hearts and a passion we believe God put in us to carry out! We would love for you to be part of this potentially overwhelming task!

By December 2010, our goal is to have at least 12 chapters or groups of women throughout the country making hospital gowns for children's hospitals in their communites or close by. We are reaching Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, Texas and hopefully very soon, Children's Hospital in Dallas!

Right now, our mission of the moment is our first one....it's called "35 Wishes" and here's the scoop on it and a message from Sharon....

Hello, Friends!

When our daughter, Sarah was born, as some of you already know, she had heart problems. Over the period of her first year of life, she had four major heart surgeries.

After her recovery and getting better, we got home and I stayed with her and did not return to work for quite some time. During that time, I felt the overwhelming burden to do something for others in the same situation that our family had been in. Armed with my camera and some friends, I decided to go to the Ronald McDonald House and host a family portrait day in which I took portraits of all of the families and their children, both well & sick. I met some of the most amazing people through this mission and felt like God truly opened my eyes to a love of helping others through my experiences.

Before Sarah, anything I did for others was out of a feeling of just "doing my part". I didn't have a sense of urgency like I did after Sarah came along. My entire life, I've had that gut feeling that there is something out there that I am SUPPOSED to be doing but I've thought many times that the feeling just hasn't hit me just right. I've done lots of things with the talents I've been blessed with to try to bless others but STILL, I feel like I'm missing the boat somewhere.
So many times, I've been told..."You are so talented". It's sometimes a burden to me because I don't feel like I am always using my talent to absolutely be a blessing to someone else and even if I am ............I know there is some huge thing I've not seen yet! Something BIG that God has for me to do. I have always had the gut feeling that I am supposed to change lives in a BIG way. A bunch of lives.

I have felt called to children with heart problems since Sarah's birth and our journey with her.
It is allllllll coming together now! My "Big Thing" happened yesterday!

In September, I bought an outfit for Sarah that was handmade by a woman named "Keri" on http://www.etsy.com/. Her storefront is called chasingbirdies . She makes amazing clothing! Absolutely adorable things! After receiving the outfit, I decided it would be what Sarah wore to her cardiologist appointment in October. I always let her wear a special outfit that day and she always looks extra cute for those appointments. It's like her big day in the city! :) She loves it!

Well, AT her appointment, I'm sure most of you read the blog about her not wanting to wear her hospital gown. She said "it didn't match"! LOL So, I contacted Keri to see if she could get a pattern for hospital gowns and she said yes! I was so excited about that! We decided to have some gowns made for Sarah before her next surgeries that are coming up soon. The last thing I wanted is for her to be stressed out over her gown! haha Then, Keri emailed me and asked me if other children may be interested in one, too and how this may be a good ministry for us. I immediately had that WOW feeling!

I thought..........well, I can't sew, but I can find a way to help make this happen!

35 Wishes .....a plan is born....

So, I talked to Keri yesterday afternoon and we have a plan of action! She and some of her friends are going to make 35 hospital gowns for the children who will be in the hospital at TCH on the heart recovery floor on Christmas Day! AND, we are gathering other items to include in gifts for 35 children in the 35 rooms of that floor! Hence, the name....35 Wishes. Everyone who has heard of this since yesterday is 'on board' with helping! Even Jason (my 9 year old) can't wait to help! He's going to design the cards for us to put with each gift!

This is such a God thing! When we got on the phone, we had never spoken before. I had only bought a few things from her on etsy and we had chatted back and forth via email through their site. When I asked for her phone number....I called and she answered the phone with excitement in her voice! We could not talk fast enough! It was like we had both been waiting SO long for something big and we had found each other and we knew we were going to be unstoppable together! During our hour long conversation, we laughed, CRIED, everything! We are going to meet sometime in the next week or so and sit down and REALLY brainstorm about what we can do further....past Christmas....how we can grow and REALLY change lives! She and I talked about our husbands, too! Turns out....she tells me her husband works in the construction industry....I said...."Really?......mine too! What does your husband do?" She replies...."He's a branch manager for a rental company." ............so I ask..."WHAT rental company?" She says............"United Rentals,......have you heard of it?"! Well, yes.....my HUSBAND is a sales rep for united rentals!!!!!!!!!!! We both start screaming and laughing! It's hilarious!~ So funny!

A few "funny" coincidences we discovered that will make us a great team!....

*We are both Christians!
*She's only been sewing for a little less than 2 months.
*I was her first customer!
*Our husbands work for the same company!
*She lives an hour away from me! (and etsy is a worldwide website and I didn't even realize she was in the Dallas area until AFTER I ordered!)
*She does not like the marketing aspect of anything and I live for it!
*We are both stay at home/work at home moms!
*She & I have both been looking for something bigger!

I am so excited about this and if this story pulls at your heart-strings..........you can help, too!

Email us at heartfeltcouture@yahoo.com if you would be interested in helping in any way. We need support from everyone who can help! If anyone would like to make a donation to our cause, we are using the money to purchase the hatboxes to put the items in and for fabric to help make more hospital gowns, goodies for the boxes, etc. however, we are not set up as a non-profit or charitable entity yet and cannot provide tax reciepts. We are thankful for any help we get

Sarah has come SUCH a long way and we are so blessed by her life....I want her life to continue causing blessings for others! These photos are so hard to look back at and see where she started, but when you look at where she is now....it just truly shows how wonderful God is and how important it is to me to make a difference in others' lives!

And here's the scoop on Keri, too!

I always thought that God gave me twin girls for a reason and On Tuesday Oct 21th he finally revealed the reason.

I have only been truly sewing for 6 months. I started a couple of years ago and had a horrible time with it so I stopped. In April I was looking for a special outfit for my girls for family pictures so I went and looked. Everything I found was outrageously priced. So with the help of the most important person in my life I started to sew. When I tell people I have only been sewing that long they are amazed. And I truly feel like God gave me this talent so quickly for a reason.

I started selling on Etsy because a hand full of very close friends said I should start selling these outfits that I make for my girls. I really didn’t want to sell them because I felt it was a hobby and that I had just started. But under constant calling and hounding (you ladies know who you are) I decided I would start a little store on Etsy. I started on Sept 4th. Sharon was my very first Etsy order. She told me she loved my stuff which made me feel SOOO much better about starting this!

When Sharon contacted me about making the gowns it was also a WOW moment for me. First she loved my clothing enough to have me make her daughter something so unique that I felt honored. Second I have always felt blessed about very healthy children and every time I hear about a child that is sick I am on my knees praying for the child and thanking God for my own. When Sharon told me about Sarah, that’s what happened. I started praying and through the Holy Spirit over the course of a few weeks I decided to ask Sharon if other kids would like custom hospital gowns. And that is where God revealed why he gave me twin girls.

If I hadn't been looking to sew something for my girls I would have NEVER started sewing and if he would not have put these special people in my life to encourage me I would have NEVER opened an Etsy shop. And I would have NEVER meet Sharon! So God does do things with unlikely people. I don’t have a degree in fashion, I never took a sewing class, and I don’t spend tons of money on my clothes. I am a cheapskate mother of twins who believes it doesn’t have to cost a lot to look FABULOUS! So I think kids spending days, weeks, and months in the hospital should look fabulous too!

I believe that God can do all things and this right here is a testimony to that! I have a truly God given talent because I just learned to sew. Believe me I wished I had been sewing for years, I would probably be less self conscious but the Lord works in mysterious ways!