Colors of Hope with Rising Star Outreach

 

When I started the project of drawing 100 girls from India for the coloring book My 100 Daughters with Rising Star Outreach, I was overcome with the beauty and presence of the girls of India. Studying photographs of their faces, clothing, hair styles, jewelry and customs, I felt such love for those I’ve never met. The first time I painted one of my illustrations, I felt like their skin should be the color gold. I searched out metallic paint, and after painting their skin a lovely brown, I tinted it in gold as a symbol of their great worth and value. I was later told what the color gold meant in India – it was a sign to them of their worth as well.

When I first spoke to Becky Douglas about the idea of a coloring book, she said, “Laura, India is a coloring book!” 

She told me about the bright colors, how the landscapes and people are vibrant and eclectic. 

With this in mind, I started to envision the magic of India. If my little girl Eden loved to color princesses, angels, fairies and mermaids, the girls of India would love that too.

 Beautiful landscapes, friendly animals and playful insects started to present themselves as well. Who wouldn’t want to be friends with a peacock, a tiger, elephant and more.

When I present this work to children at school events, they want to learn more about the 

girls of India and help any way they can.

Because of poverty and dire conditions difficult for us to understand, it is imperative to help the children of India. I asked myself, “What if this was my daughter?” 

These little girls are eating the pieces of a broken coconut that fell off a truck and was run over.

The truth is these are all our daughters. It is our duty to help provide food, health care, education, shelter and even more, love, hope and a bright future. Rising Star Outreach is an absolute miracle. 

Because of persistence and vision, they have made the necessary relationships to be in these leprosy colonies to minister to those in need. How I thank and appreciate all those who work with Rising Star Outreach to make this possible.

Me with Becky Douglas and Amy Humphrey, presenting Becky the painting of the girls in gold, also her daughter Amber as an angel who loves the children of India.

It was especially touching when I started an illustration of a woman who had lost much of her hands and feet because of leprosy. At first, I had the idea to draw her perfect, with 10 fingers and 10 toes, but as I was finishing the illustration, I felt impressed to erase her hands and feet and draw them as they really were. I had spent much time drawing her hands and feet perfect, so the act of erasing them was very emotional for me. As I started to cry, I could only image the pain and loss she had experienced. 

Her toes and fingers were taken by such a horrible disease, it didn’t seem fair. I stared at the picture of her and reverently started to draw the unique and disformed shape of each hand, the curves where her fingers used to be, the heals of her feet, how humbling the process was. I drew the praying mantis next to here so she could always have someone praying for her, the firewood within reach so she didn't have to crawl to start a fire and the chipmunk for so she could have cheerful friendship. The lotus flower above her head is a blessing for her beauty and purpose.

My 100 Daughters coloring book was published in 2017 and is available on Amazon. 50% of the proceeds go to Rising Star Outreach Sponsorship. Since then I have taken it into schools, shared it at birthday parties, church events and even an open house where I spoke about the process of creating such a special book. (You can read about that here.) This spring 2021, Rising Star asked if I could illustrate several coloring pages for the boys. We could present them in Colors of Hope, a virtual online coloring event. I am the mother of five amazing sons and as before, the same question entered my mind, “What if these were your boys?” 

Oh, how I love and pray for them. I asked for photographs of the little boys and to my delight, I saw them playing sports, climbing monkey bars, jumping, hanging out with friends and I couldn’t take my eyes off them. 

They are just like my boys who can’t wait to do their best, be silly, study, run fast and light up the world. I hope you enjoy coloring my interpretation of who these boys are and how through sponsorship, we can all play a vital and necessary role in their bright future.

Go to Rising Star Outreach to download your coloring pages. Please consider sponsoring a child today.

Love you all.

She Tried, She Failed and She Tried Again

I’ve been very, very blessed this year. My focus has been on mothering my seven amazing children including a new daughter-in-law, keeping my house more organized, preparing nutritious meals and exercising every day. I recognize most people my age (I’m 47) have children who are older, in school and busy with activities, but I still have a one and four-year old at and homeschooled 4^th grader at home. 

In a thrift store dress I paid $9.99, worth $180.

Ruby's dress was $2.99, worth $35.

I’m thankful to know this is my path, because when the days become long and the kids start to bicker, the dinner burns and the dishes are piled in the sink, I have a deep understanding that I am meant to be their mother. I have been given the gifts, love and purpose to raise them in love, intelligence, creativity, spirituality, confidence and health. How many times do I fail a day? Too many to count. Do I lose my temper? Yes. Do I eat cookies for dinner more often then I should? Yes. Do I forget one of my kid’s appointments or lose my car keys? Yes, but I’m good at getting back up.

Falling, failing and getting back up.

That was a big lesson for me this year.

This has been the year to embark on many different endeavors. I illustrated and published my second coloring book, The Girls Guide toFriendship.

 on Amazon Prime.

I listened to daily motivational podcasts from Abraham Hicks on the law of attraction and at times, literally felt like I was floating because of the things I was feeling and learning. I know these lessons have changed me in big, marvelous ways.

I'm blessed to be a sales rep for Monat Premium Hair and Pura Vida bracelets.

I’ve considered going back to school for a masters degree, but my love as an entrepreneur encouraged me to consider investing in a course on running my own business and marketing.

I made a big leap and invested in Alison Prince’s course BecauseI Can. I immediately started learning about everything from getting my wholesale license to running a website to marketing to influencers to purchasing inventory. It was a lot to take in and like most things I feel passionate about, I gave it my all.

I decided to call my business My 100 Daughters and donate a certain percentage of proceeds to help sponsor 100 girls from India through Rising Star Outreach.

What would I sell?

What would I market?

After many prayers and taking personally inventory of what I felt I should dive into, after looking at current trends, google searches and purchase/resell ratios, I decided to sell dresses and overalls. I absolutely love dresses and overalls and when I sold name-brand, used clothing on eBay, they were always my best sellers.

I also met an amazing young woman named Alicia who absolutely, positively felt like my business idea was brilliant, that surely through my sales we would help all these darling girls in India and change the world.  Alicia encouraged me like a loving sister, like a best friend, like a smart business savvy entrepreneur woman like she is. And we laughed a lot!!

Ruby  with Alicia's baby Hollyn.

So, I started.

You know what happens when you decided to sell dresses and overalls? You spend hours and days shopping/browsing wholesalers and purchase huge shipments of inventory. It starts coming to your home in big, heavy boxes and it piles up in your den and closet. You see the purchases on your credit card bill and think “You know, you better get this right. You’ve got a lot riding on this. You don’t want to let your family down.”

Derek’s cousin Joe, the computer genius that he is spent weeks helping me build my shopify account and away we went. Sales, sales, sales galore, right!!!

At least, that was what was supposed to happen.

But, it didn’t.

I only marketed my store twice on facebook, maybe once on instagram. I just didn’t feel passionate about it, no matter how hard I tried. I mean, there were the carefully selected inventory in my house. There was the beautiful website, accepting credit card. What happened? Why?

my100daughters.com

I’ve taken several months to think about what happened? Don’t I love dresses and overalls? Yes, absolutely. I sold used clothing on eBay for six years and loved it.

Click here to read one of my old post on eBay sales.

 I understand inventory, shipping, customer service, I mean, I was born for this!  But, I didn’t like it with new inventory. Isn’t that weird. I mean, who knew, right??? But at least for me, there was no creativity in it, at least not enough, and where was the adventure? Because of my love for thrifting, my concern for the environment, the working condition of people in third-world countries and here my shipments from China, the Philippines, -  with stuff that was great and all, but . . . I don’t even buy things like this for me. I just run out to the thrift store and find something fabulous second-hand, that thank heavens has not ended up in a landfill. I don’t know how else to explain it, but for a creative person who wants to CREATE, not just push product, I just wasn’t digging it. I know people do it and love it, and I'm not judging anyone here, this is just my own experience. 

Even thought it all sat there in huge boxes in my closet, I let it all go. I stopped listening to the course. I stopped listening to crazy youtube fast-talking entrepreneurs who record their videos on some remote tropical island over that super annoying uncopyrighted music playing in the background (you know who I’m talking about, right??)! It all stopped!

I just focused on my health, my kids, good food, a semi-clean house and it was still crazy land over here, but nothing I can’t handle. 

Christmas 2019

I didn’t carry any guilt or regret over paying off those credit card bills and eventually, I put the boxes of inventory high up on a shelf so I didn’t even see them anymore. I started gifting dresses and overalls for birthdays and bridal showers. I focused on gratitude, clarity, abundance, joy and listening to my own inner voice that knows I will follow my ideas, even if I fail because when I listen to Abraham Hicks or Rachel Hollis or Dean Graziosi, Tom Bilyeu, President Nelson, my own mother for heavens sake, my husband, my friend Amy or any Christian song in the entire world, they tell you “You are worthy. You were born for a purpose. Your dreams are worth it. You can do it. Work hard. Believe. Journal. Vision. Love,” and on and on and on. I really believe this stuff. 

I have faith. I understand ideas and momentum, clarity and gratitude, and I know failure is just a stepping stone moving me in the right direction. I know when I follow my impulses and trust in myself that mistakes show me I’m willing to take risks, that persistence is the key to success, that if I get up and try again, I’ll be better because I’ve learned, trusted and grown.

Chandler's 20th birthday

So there you have it, that’s how I failed this year and moved on instead of feeling sorry or beating myself up. I've had so many blessings, with Canyon doing so well and Chandler happy and married, Payson graduating in the spring 2020, Mayer excelling as an athlete, Derek's so blessed with work, Ruby is healthy and active, Eden is loving home school, Reef is on the honor roll and I'm running again. 

I don't have to look far to see and feel all my blessings. And, wouldn’t you know it, in September as I prepared for Ruby’s first birthday I had an idea, a dream, a vision (literally, it was amazing!!) and I wanted to give Ruby a homemade dream catcher. I shared this dream with my incredible darling friend Kristin who made Ruby the most beautiful dream catcher ever.

To read more about Kristen, her friendship and talent, click here. 

Ruby on Christmas Sunday

 I started making dream catchers on my own, I'm going to make 100 of them for each of my 100 daughters and now, very soon, I will launch my100daughters.com dream catchers and dream catcher kits because I’m not sure if there is any better feeling then making one of those beautiful, inspiring, magical dream catchers with bamboo hoops, cotton doilies and second-hand, vintage, upcycled fabrics that, thank heavens, have not ended up in a landfill!!!

It’s a niche (perfect!), I know it, but man, am I excited to talk about dreams, support dreams, put dreams into people’s homes, motivate, soften, encourage and just beautify the world in anyway I can. I'm most excited about the kits because there is such an amazing feeling to make one. Eden talks about how good it "feels" to make a dream catcher. Hopefully the website will launch by the end of January. I love Alison's course and have the knowledge I need to move forward. She has an amazing podcast called Because I Can. Give it a listen.

My dream is to sponsor 100 daughters of India. What’s yours!!!!