Good morning and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

As several of you already know, my family and I are going through the International Adoption process. For those of you who don't know me, I've been on dA for almost three years, my husband and I have been married almost two years and we have a son in preschool together. We have always wanted to adopt since we met in high school, and have decided not to wait any longer. We have been accepted with a local homestudy and placement agency and have chosen to go with Ghana, Africa as our program. Children waiting in Ghana tend to be a little older, so we are not adopting an infant. We are likely to get a girl, anywhere from 2-4 years old. The Ghanaian program is relatively new, and therefor much different than other older programs such as China or Korea. While the process is a little quicker than with those other countries, it also provides a bit of a catch for us. Rather than having months between homestudies, dossiers and referrals; we might have weeks or even days. (A homestudy is when your home and your family work with a Social Worker to get you ready for being adoptive parents in your state. A dossier is the paperwork you prepare to submit to your adoptive country with things like birth certificates, background checks, homestudy approvals, etc. A referral is when the adoptive country places you with a child and requests you to travel to come meet and take home your child.)
It is for this unique reason that we have come up with Art for Adoption. The last thing we want is a handout to help us with these upfront and impending costs. While we have more than enough income, room and love for our waiting child, the upfront costs can be more than we could come up with on our own. We will be doing an arts and crafts online auction similar to that of eBay or if you are familiar with the Skeleton Key Auctions benefiting the WM3. Not only will people be helping a great cause, they will be getting unique handmade art and crafts!
The auction will run from May until June. In the meantime, our family is doing other local fundraisers, such as a yard sale, bake sale, etc. The auction is our big show. We are really excited about it, and I personally have made around 20 pieces to donate.
But we need your help.
While several of your amazing fellow deviants have pledged pieces, I cant help but take advantage of the opportunity I have here on dA. With so many talented artists and craftsters, how could I not?
We are accepting any piece that is handmade by you! This includes prints of digital art, plushies, paintings, ceramics, textiles, jewelry, paintings, anything YOU made yourself. (This means it cannot be bought, but if your grandmother made it, that's ok) It can even be a sketchdump you like. People outside the art community love to see the inner workings inside the community, so don't discount sketches!
"Whats in it for me"? you ask?
Several things.
1. Exposure. When you send your piece to us, include a URL where your work is displayed or sold. You can also choose to put your name and a brief bio. Also include a base price for which you normally sell your pieces, as a starting bid. This will all be included in the piece description on the auction site. This auction will be plugged on dA, Facebook, MySpace, several personal and professional blogs, Twitter,a photostream on Flickr and even a handful of local businesses!
2.Merit Badge. Figuratively, of course. Regardless of things happening in the world today, there are still children waiting for homes. Right now, we have an empty bedroom, an empty seat at our table and an empty place in our hearts. There is a little girl somewhere in West Africa waiting for us. You can help bring her home. Sure, your piece might not earn hundreds of dollars, but ANY amount helps us greatly. It might be $20 to help us pay for our passports, or $5 for breakfast in Accra, the capital city. You will receive our most sincere gratitude.
3. A tangible end result. The road of International Adoption is long and full of twists and turns. (As many of you who know me can already attest to) No matter how long it takes us, we will bring our daughter home, and when we do, you will know. We will update dA and when the time comes, we will write an article about Africa and about bringing our daughter home.

Pieces can be sent to our PO box until May 1st. That's plenty of time to get your name in there! (Of course we will still accept pieces throughout the auction, but we're just trying to make less work for ourselves) We will write an article and announce the auction when it begins sometime around May 15th. We are spreading the word like wildfire amongst friends, families and websites. There will definitely be a lot of traffic to the auction, but that doesn't necessarily mean that every piece will sell. If for whatever reason, there are pieces left over by June 15th, we will put those pieces in our Etsy shop: Art for Adoption, and sell them at your suggested retail price.
100% of our proceeds go towards our adoption, I can guarantee you that.
Items can be sent to:
Selby Family Adoption
3555 S. El Camino Real
P.M.B. #606
San Mateo, CA
94403-3415

Maybe you'd like to help, but don't have anything to donate? You can help us spread the word when the time comes! I will be making banners for websites and blogs. Anything at all, if it be a donated item, a re-posting of this article, a supportive comment or even a prayer tonight, we appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts. If you'd like more information feel free to note me or see my latest journal.

Regardless of your feelings on adoption fundraising, or international adoption, please keep in mind that you are commenting on someone's family. Any ignorant, racist or just stupid comments will be hidden. This includes any Brangelina jokes ok? Come on, my husband is waaaaay hotter than Brad Pitt!

Thank you for your time!

A special thank you to those amazing deviants who have already sent pieces, bought pieces from me, and those who have been so amazingly supportive these last few months.

Please celebrate safely tonight!