a glowing rainbow!

I had to sort this order by color instead of style and size.
For obvious reasons. Just look at this family's order!
(see the whole rainbow on the superstar shirt blog).

They just arrived yesterday and will ship tomorrow to out-of-towners. Boxed & bagged!

I ordered 81 shirts, much more than I expected, so the price point dropped. Rather than refunding everyone 50c, we decided on this exciting innovation:

The superstar still shining shirts glow in the dark.

Really.
I know, totally mind-blowing. We tested last night and they are totally awesome, even if my glowing photos aren't (and thus not even included).

shining all over

My cousin Terrell told me about this funny story. And Terrell was wearing his superstar shirt at college and there was a boy who saw him and said, "I have another shirt like that. I love it and wear it all the time."
And Terrell said, "Hey, wait a minute. Where did you get the shirt?"
"I got it from my English teacher."
"It's for my cousin in Pennsylvania!"

That's all. bye-bye

still shining in 2009

Marian's "new birthday", her 1-year bone marrow transplant anniversary, is fast approaching. The big day is April 23rd, appropriately squeezed right between Earth Day and Arbor Day this year. If you're in the area (or flying in, thank you Paul & Christine!) on Friday the 24th, we're planning a big everyone-invited party in our backyard. Watch here for details. All we know so far is that there will be cotton candy and a smash-the-bad-old-white-cells pinata.

Since we've had several requests, I am going to do one last superstar tee order this month. These will be special edition tees, with an additional Marian-scripted phrase underneath the classic graphic: "still shining in 2009".

This is not a fundraiser; I just want to offer them at cost, $6. If you want me to mail you yours, please add $2 more per tee. E-mail orders & send Paypal payments (easiest) to three_goats@yahoo.com. I'll also happily accept checks or $ from the locals, and will send my mailing address to anyone else who prefers that method. Saves the paypal charge.

Order deadline is March 20th, so I can have them ordered & distributed in time for the first anniversary. If you're a first-timer, we still recommend the classic light blue, Marian's favorite color, but if you're ready to branch out, other colors are available. Heaven knows we have the whole rainbow at our house.

We're using Gildan tees, the same sort that we printed most of Marian's other superstar tees on. They run pretty true-to-size, with the women's no slimmer than the men's, but with narrower neck ribbing & shorter sleeves. The youth tees are boxier, like the men's.

Standard size choices are:
Men's S-3XL, Ladies' XS-2XL, Youth XS(2/4), S(6/8), M(10/12), L(14/16) XL(18/20).

Here's the link to the website I use, if you want to look more closely at color choices:
http://www.wearables4you.com/menupage_subsub.cfm?cid=1&mid=25&mill=Gildan%C2%AE
We'll be ordering the first three tee styles listed on the above page.

Feeling complicated? I'm feeling cooperative! You can get fancier tees (more stylized cuts, Bella or American Apparel +) for approximately $2 more. Peruse the website of the company I like to work with (acme prints) if you want to search out details, and just let me know. The t-shirt Marian is wearing is a Bella® Girl 1x1 Baby Rib Knit Short Sleeve Crew Neck Tee - 9001 in fuschia, for example. If you order something unusual, I'll let you know the exact $ when I receive my invoice from the company before they print.

t-shirt orders

I'm placing the last-for-awhile T-shirt order on Wednesday. E-mail me with special requests or questions: three_goats@yahoo.com.

Pre-ordered shirts will arrive in about 3 weeks: 2 week turnaround at the online shop I order from, and a week of shipping.

Caitlin's Smiles workshop

I like this 'cause it is special to me and we could give lots of stuff to Caitlin's Smiles. It is great 'cause it gives a journey to me everyday and when I got there I saw a BUNCH of people and they are from Pennsylvania and I was using this to help Caitlin's Smiles and I was doing it at my school at the art room.

Love, Marian

finally!

Our superstar shirt order finally arrived yesterday, along with superstar buttons we're throwing in to apologize for how long it took us. Because ...[I typed the reasons and they looked as weak as excuses usually do. We just had all you'd expect]

Also, this dumb situation: they sent us all unisex tees instead of part ladies' tees. So the men's tees will go out tomorrow, and if you don't care & just want the usual (the difference isn't in cut, just shorter sleeves and a slimmer neck ribbing), then I'll send your ladies' right away, too. The printer I used, acmeprints.com, is being super-awesome and doing a rush job, printing & shipping the replacement tees today, so I hope the delay won't be too long.

if you're local...

...please join us for a project superstar work party on Friday afternoon. A copy of the note I sent to Marian & Audrey's school secretary this morning to e-mail out:

Many of you know that Marian Goates, a first grader at GBLUES, is having a bone marrow transplant this spring. Her family and medical team have high hopes that this will be a turning point in her health, but it will also be a long, frightening journey. As part of her personal preparation, she is earning money and doing work for Caitlin's
miles, a Harrisburg-based organization that distributes craft kits to children in hospitals, and have passions that match ours: crafts and brave kids! They are low-profile, but powerful: in 2007, they distributed 49,536 craft kits to kids in hospitals, as well as thousands of other bags of treats and family support items. You can learn more about this marvelous group at http://www.caitlins-smiles.org/ , and more about Marian's work, project superstar, at her blog, imacraftartist.blogspot.com.

This Friday, March 14th, Marian and the Goates family will be hosting a work meeting for Caitlin's Smiles in the Art Room. We'll meet right after school (2:45 pm) in the Art Room, have a snack, and get to work assembling craft kits, making get-well cards, and decorating bags for their “Bag of Smiles”, a treasure trove that includes a drawing pad/coloring book, crayons/markers/colored pencils, a journal with pen, modeling clay, two craft activities and a Ty Beanie (they distributed 4,715 of those last year!).

Showing up for an hour or a few minutes will really help Marian to feel supported in her sweet charity work. If your child is a friend of Marian's, and worried about her, the opportunity to help can be empowering in a confusing and scary situation. Thank you for being part of the nurturing environment Marian has found at GBLUES. She loves you!

hamster playsets

Listed in the shop today!

A limited edition of nine. Audrey and Marian worked very hard (with remarkable dedication/attention span) on them, and now deeply desire one themselves, a true test of little girl appeal.

hamsters & hedgehogs

I like making crafts. There was a snowstorm so we got to work on some new projects for project superstar.

Wash!

superstar soap comes with an original piece of germ art & this handy poem Marian learned in school last week (nice timing, Mrs. Serr!):

Germs are tiny and can't be seen.

They may be small, but they can be mean.

Germs make you feel sick, all sniffly and sneezy.

Your tummy could hurt, or you might be wheezy.

Germs can spread from you to another,

So when you sneeze, your nose needs cover.

Even after you sneeze, germs might try to stay.

They are there on your hands, so wash them away!

Help fight infection with superstar soap!

for some easy-to-remember handwashing songs (most adaptations of familiar tunes), see this helpful webpage.

Handwashing is the easiest and most effective means of reducing the spread of infection.

soaps

[Anne-Marie at Bramble Berry graciously donated a rather massive amount of melt-and-pour soap to the project superstar effort (in the shop starting tomorrow!), and Marian and I had great fun with our first batch. I didn't like the soap molds I found, but did find a star candy mold, and found that our IKEA silicone ice cube trays worked so slick. And then pushed back bedtime for a second! (and third, but that makes me irresponsible, not "fun". sigh.)]

coming up!

[On vacation for the last week, but a peek at what's next for project superstar. Marian stole my camera during a pottery shoot she was "helping" with (kept trying to steal her favorites & sit in photos!)
to photograph her stars :)]

packaging the superstar necklaces

We've been working really hard on the snowglobe necklace kits and I hope you like the thank you notes. Mom said to do them quick but I wanted to do everyone's name on it. We'll mail the last of them tomorrow. You can still get them if you want but there are a hundred more. But I hope you still have a nice day. Thank you, we need to get this money to Caitlin Smiles for you want to help!
This picture is blurry because this is how fast I was when I did it, you know.

ordering superstar tees

[Marian with her uncle Justin, sporting one of her tees at our family reunion this summer]

**edit: ordering instructions now on the blog's main page**

Mom note:

Thanks so much for all of your kind notes and interest in the superstar tees. I'm ironing out the order & hope to submit it tomorrow. To start, I'm going to just order a batch of 3 dozen to sell, then see how it goes from there. In later orders, other colors or styles may be available, but for now, we are ordering light blue printed with white, because Marian is demanding it (her "most beautiful like the sky" color), and choosing Gildan tees, because they are my picky husband's current favorite, fit-wise. You can see the men's here, the ladies here, and the youth here.

If you want to order a superstar tee, please e-mail me at three_goats@yahoo.com, with "superstar tee order" in the subject line. Let me know what style and size you want, and the address where I should send them. I would prefer you just pay via paypal, using the same e-mail address, but if you want to send me a check or money order, also indicate that, and I will send you back my mailing address. One tee will be $10, including shipping, and additional tees $8 each (for local folks, ie, no shipping hassle involved, make that $7 & $6).

When you get your tee shirt, please send us a photo of you wearing it (digital to the same address is fine; I'll print them), so we can put them all up in Marian's hospital room: the superstar supporters who love and believe in our very brave, extra-charming girl--the original superstar!

2/29/08 update: our first order of shirts should be here in about a week, and will be mailed promptly. Response was better than I expected (thank you!), and I waited while orders kept coming in, then went on vacation...but we ordered extra little superstar treats to include as a tardiness apology. And ordered over 100 t-shirts, even before we sent out our friends and family newsletter! I ordered a couple extra each of the most popular sizes, so some may still be available, but also plan on doing another t-shirt order on March 21st--there's your deadline. Thanks!

what I'm working on for project superstar

[you probably want to click & view the photos bigger so you can see her sweet concentrating hands. Her mom really enjoys that, anyway...]

snowglobe necklaces

[We made snowglobe necklaces on Saturday, and whipup.net is going to use our tutorial on their website. I'll post the link when it's up; she hopes to squeeze it in before the end of the month. In the meantime, here's Marian's effort. We love this project because it repurposes the medical supplies we are swamped with. For those of you whose homes aren't bulging with little shot bottles, kits for this project are the first project superstar fundraiser item available for purchase at purplepetunia.etsy.com.]

project superstar

My bone marrow transplant is in March. Right now I'm starting to make plans. I want to earn money for kits. First I'm earning money for new crafts for me, and then I'm earning money for Caitlin's Smiles. I need to bring brand new craft supplies [to the hospital] 'cause they don't have any germs and you can wash them off with a wipe.We are calling it project superstar because I made this great superstar T-shirt and my mom and dad and sister think it's really cute and also my aunts and uncles and grandma. I first made this picture for a treasure hunt and then we decided to use it for our family reunion. We're going to make new ones with light blue because it's my favorite color and this is why I like it: the bright, beautiful of the blue blue blue sky and I love it so much it's gonna make me cry.
Last week my mother and sister and me goed to Caitlin's Smiles. We helped doing craft kits and we made cards and we decorated bags. They give the craft kits to the kids at the hospital who are sick and they pass out 4-5,000 a month. And that's how many bags they pass out a month. And I liked helping so much that I'm about to cry. My class is going to help and they're going to make cards at creative activities. We're going to have some parties at our house to put together craft kits. Then I'm going to earn extra money with Project Superstar and give it to Caitlin's Smiles.

Some of the things that I'm going to sell for project superstar are star wish necklaces, superstar T-shirts [at cost, for support, not profit], beaded barrettes, drawings, porcelain hamster playsets, my sister's books, and snowglobe necklace kits. I'm going to sell them in my mom's etsy shop, purple petunia, and she'll give the money to me.

[mom note: thanks to all of those who love Marian and want to help her. She's really excited about this project, and supporting it will mean a lot to her. It's kind of unusual to plan a BMT so far ahead of time, and I thought that having a service project would give her something positive to focus on as she waits. She is also taking her research very seriously...we'll post her BMT informative poster here when she finishes it. It is, of course, very detailed! When we're in the hospital, we'll be limited as to what she can take and use, but mail and drawings and photographs will be very important. She thinks that it would be great if you sent her jokes, since she heard on one of her learning DVDs that jokes help. We are reprinting her superstar tees and distributing them at cost + shipping. I think that photos of all of her favorite people in their superstar tees will be something wonderful for her to have on the walls of her hospital room during her long stay. We'll keep you posted here.]