Personalised present for new baby Roo

My childhood friend has recently had his first baby and I wanted to get him something special.

Although I missed the baby shower I saw a picture all of the presents, and they got everything they could need and more. So what do you I get a child and his folks who already have everything?

I thought perhaps I could make something. I've been more adventurous in my craft projects lately and I thought I'd have a go at crafting something.

After researching some ideas I decided on making a padded letter to go on the wall of the nursery.

So I began by drawing and cutting out a large 'R' letter (his name is Rueben) out of cardboard. Then found some material and light padding to put inside. After cutting around the template - slightly larger than the letter to fold the edges over, I turned the letter over to glue to the back. To do the corners I had to cut into strips to bend neatly across each other and not to cause bunching in the fabric.

I had to neatly trim away any excess padding as that ruined the clean edges and made the glue difficult to stick. After gluing the outside edges I left it to dry overnight.

The next day I focused on the center piece of the letter, which was more tricky. In some places I used staples to increase the staying power. I was able to do this because of cardboard was congregated and the padding hid where they'd gone into the cardboard. I covered the back with another layer of glue ready to lay the back piece of material and seal it, to create a professional finish on the back. This had no padding so the material stuck easily with the craft glue.

Finally I went round the edges with some scissors to make sure there was no excess material or fraying.

Although the letter wasn't perfect I am pleased with the final result and the parents have put it on baby Roo's door already!

New Job - New Outlook

Recently I have joined a new organisation. I have only been working there two weeks and yet I feel a significant change.

So I had been job hunting for a solid two months and had a vague idea of the type of work I wanted - organisational, working with people, especially young people, guidance roles etc.. but it seemed these jobs weren't readily available or not quite right.

http://www.the-challenge.org/

However along came The Challenge. The Challenge is a national charity that provides the National Citizen service to local young people. We provide an extensive summer programme to get young people aged 15-17 engaged in social action projects in their local areas. Over three weeks they will experience team building, skill development and running their own social action campaigns for local communities. Then over four weekends in September they go into action and work on real projects and campaigns. I am now a member of Midlands office running the programme all over the West Midlands. I am now Assistant Programme Manager for North Birmingham. 

Without sounding biased... the programme is amazing. It's ingeniously designed, allowing residential time just for fun, teambuilding, independent living experience, social interaction within community groups and more. It's great for social cohesion amount their peers as well as the partners we mix them with. The projects are carefully and painstakingly fine-tuned (trust me) to make sure we are fitting all the aims of the charity. The social interaction is for all parties and we try to create a legacy. This is not a case of volunteering some time then off they go back to their own lives.. this is contributing to things that have long time meaning and changing peoples views. 

We run a youth board with young people who have graduated from last summers programme.  As a newbie I went to meet some of the kids and help with an upcoming project of their own. I was overwhelmed by the feedback. There was one girl, Emma* who had Autism (not that you could tell) and she told me that before The Challenge she was in a one-to-one school unable to learn without additional support. After the summer she went straight into a mainstream college with no support and is loving it. She had tears in her eyes as she said to me "The Challenge is the best thing I've ever done, it has changed my life, I really don't know where I'd be or what I'd be doing now without it". Wow. How much more accreditation do you need to know you're contributing to a good thing? 

The job is tough no doubt about that, but I can see already how rewarding it will be. I'm proud to think I'm going to help make this happen. Today I lead my first meeting to make a partnership with a local day centre for adults with physical disabilities. The place has a great atmosphere and lots going on. We arranged to run some projects in the summer where our kids can do some photography projects with the service users. I really think it's going to be great. I just know, even as I type this, that if these projects go well I'm going to be an emotional wreck by the end of the summer... it really does feel so good to be giving something back and supporting communities. 

Tomorrow I'm off to help a colleague run a project with Cerebal Palsy Midlands and a group our of kids making videos diaries. Wish me luck!