Our Hands For Hope, LLC.

 It's official.

We've launched.

One year ago I was in the barrios of Peru and here we are today

launching the opening of our on-line store.

Our Hands For Hope, LLC

We are facilitating economic opportunities to better the lives of the women in other cultures, beginning with the barrios of Peru.

 We are working with women artisans living in the barrios to create luxurious hand knits out of alpaca and Peruvian pima cotton. 

Please go check out the store but come back and tell me what you think.

These photos were done by two great friends and photographers. 

Sarah Lane and Damion Hamilton

Client: Our Hands For Hope – www.OurHandsForHope.com

Lead Photographer and Creative Director – Sarah Lane (Sarah Lane Studios & Studio Twelve)  -  www.SarahLaneStudios.com

Details Photographer – Damion Hamilton -  www.DamionHamilton.com

Makeup Arists – Keli Campbell & Kim Alexandra

Hair Stylists – Margaret LaPorte & Brandyn Connor

DIY: Fabric Flower Wedding Bouquet

 

 The complete fabric flower bouquet from beginning to vows.

Part 1

Start with circles cut in 2", 3" and 4" diameters from a variety of fabric scrap fabrics. 

Preferably synthetics because they will melt and not burn.

Carefully burn the edges by waving close to a candle flame. 

See more here.

  

Begin by layering petal after petal and stitching together.

Here's the secret:  

Off set and use your burned circles as petals. Do not just center them one on top of the other.

Continue added petals and increasing them in size. 

Petal after petal, stitch after stitch.

 

 Don't worry about "messy stitches...they will all be covered up. 

The goal is to get everything to hold together.

 Now is the time to pull out all the fun brooches, buttons and broken earrings 

to add to the centers of your flowers.

 Part 2

After the petals are all stitched together and centers added, you're ready to attach a backing. 

You can create them into corsages at this point by attaching brooch pins. Or add loops to attach bobby pins to wear in your hair.

In order to add stems for a bouquet, this is the easiest way I could come up with.

Supplies needed:

Wire 20 gauge

Florest tape

Needle and thread

Long nose pliers

And always a good pair of scissors

 Bend wire in half and twist the entire length down,

leaving a loop at the top about the size of a quarter.

 On the back side of your flower, behind one of the petals, insert the wire.

 Hand stitch around the wire through the back petal and into the petals on the other side of the loop. 

There are so many layers of petals that you won't see the stitches on the front. 

This will hold the wire and flower in place.

 Now bend the wire stem and loop 90 degrees.

 Beginning about 2" down from the flower begin wrapping the floral tape up to the flower then back down. Pulling tight and twisting until you come to the end.

 Cover the entire stem.

 I did all my stems this way. When I decided how to arrange them, I added a thicker fake flower stem to some of the flowers beginning about 3 1/2' down from the flower base. 

I only added this stem to a select few. 

This gave some girth to my stems for the bouquet to be held but not too thick.

 On the backs to cover up the stitching add a silk leaf or two with the glue gun.

 You really can't see the backs when there done but,

you'll know that it would hold up in a 4-H fair judges critique!

 Now you're ready to assemble them together.

I added a few silks in with my fabric flowers and brooches. I felt like it needed that third element to give it textural interest. 

 Wrap all the stems together with florist tape.

 I covered my stems completely by wrapping with lime green cotton ribbon and added the pearls to the ends of the loops.

Now for a bit of shamless advertising. Looking for the perfect gift for the wedding party?
Check out the buttery soft alpaca throws ready to ship to you from
Our Hands For Hope

You can help change the lives of the women and children living in the barrios of Peru by sending a
Cuddle Gram

Our Hands For Hope, LLC.

Every day we are closer and closer to our website up and running! 

The concept is simple. 

For every soft, cuddly, alpaca throw you purchase; we purchase a warm and snuggly fleece blanket for a child in need.

 

Not only is it simple, it's helping those most in need.

 

These beautiful hand knit throws are lovingly created by women in the barrios of Peru.

 

Our Hands For Hope, LLC.

It's official. I can finally talk about what has been going on these last six months. A year ago, I began working with an organization called, Project New Hope International.
One of the many areas they are working in is Trujillo, Peru. Peru is a beautiful country and the people of Peru are just as beautiful and inspiring. I was blessed to have been able to travel down there last April.
The women I have the privileged of working with, created a cooperative called Peruvian Mothers. These mothers have all been trained in textile arts. Some having felt the need to pass on what they had been taught, have gone out into barrios of Peru and trained up other mothers.

To date there are about 400 women all trained and capable of producing amazing textile work in knit, crochet, orquilla, crewel and embroidery.

My job has been to create a business here in the US to promote their work. I have been helping them design and chose colors for the US market. At our first sale we sold well over 3/4 of the beautiful alpaca hand knit luxury items and by word of mouth continued to sell through Christmas until nothing was left.

New stock is now here in the US and we are getting ready to have a
Spring Trunk show in March.
Our web site is almost done and I received my LLC papers from the state!

It's official
Our Hands For Hope, LLC
is up and running!