It’s Friday, it’s Friday, it’s FRIDAY!

This week has been quite the variety here at Brave Girls Club. Well, I guess every week is quite the variety for us… So enjoy the hodgepodge of pictures you’re about to see.

This was the very first thing that happened this week. It was only 9:00 a.m. at our Monday morning meeting. I had my head in my laptop, answering emails and preparing to post our first ever “Pin it to Win it”. Then I looked up and saw Jeff all wrapped up in a dainty little blanket. His shirt says SRCF, which stands for Snake River Cross Fit… He had a hard workout that morning.

We had a little interruption during the mentioned meeting… Our trusty UPS man walked in with a GINORMOUS shipment of backordered Brave Girl line products. Then another dude showed up with a 400 lb pallet of ChipArt supplies. So we spent the majority of this week unloading boxes and putting everything into inventory, that’s me and Sabrina up there, having fun while sorting out the never-ending packages of stuff.

This is only a SMIDGEN of what came in this week!  We now have an abundance of ChipArt supplies… head over to the shoppe to check out what we have! Next week, I hope to post lots of pictures of beautiful things that you can make with the awesome supplies. After we had everything unloaded, we spent a couple days getting all the backorders shipped out to you awesome customers who have been waiting so patiently to receive what you ordered from the new Brave Girl line!

Okay, you could probably guess how many empty boxes we had by the end of the week. And when you have a large pile of boxes just sitting there, staring at you all day, you can’t resist making a fort out of them! So that’s what we did, and we don’t plan on taking it down any time soon. Here’s Jeff, going back to his childhood, playing [working] in our fort.

Check it out, there’s even a window to peek out of when the camera girl is sneaking up on you! It only took us about 3.7 minutes to build, then we were right back to work… maybe next week we will have more time to mess around in our new playplace.

We also had a birthday this week! Brock turned 22… so we got some tacos from the local taco truck and brought them to the Clubhouse for a little celebration.

Here’s the team, with happy tummies from delicious street tacos… and happy hearts from the good company of Marq and Melody. They both work at Brave River Ranch, so it’s a fun time when they come visit us here!

That night we had a little party for the birthday guy… Sabrina had an awesome idea to make 22 milkshakes and put candles in the straws. Cool, huh?! She always things of the best ideas.

After a late night of birthday partying, it was back to work to fill lots and lots and lots and lots of orders. It was a super fun change of pace for us to spend a couple days away from the computer to pack boxes up with all sorts of pretty things. And if you’ve ever purchased anything from the Brave Girls Shoppe, you can imagine how much fun we have packing up your stuff all special and what not!

Here’s Amy, going through the hundreds of pages of packing slips… making sure that we send out the right stuff.

Whew, you’re finally done looking at those boring cardboard boxes, now for something MUCH prettier! Kathy has been working on an absolutely gorgeous project. She started this at camp last month and has been working on it a little bit each day since then. It’s made of wool pennies layered on a square of fabric with different embroidery on each penny. It is a total work of art… It’s the perfect size to be sewed into a pillow as soon as it’s done. Pure talent right there!

Here’s a closer view. Look at all those beautiful details…

We can’t wait to share the new stitchery patterns and projects that Kathy and Patrice have been working on! Kathy went to one of her favorite quilting shops this week and came back with these stunning new hand dyed wools and threads. I am so excited to see what it all becomes… aren’t the colors delightful?! Stay tuned for what they have in store for you, I know it’s going to be AWESOME!

 

Well… that’s all for now! Check back on Monday for a new Pin it to Win it.  We hope you have the most wonderful spring weekend!

Sending you all so much love.

xoxo – malary & the brave girls team

So…you may or may not know…but a little miracle happened last Friday…and it all started with an idea….that started with love for a sister. (and the whole thing came right back around to creating all sorts of miracles that had to do with love for a sister) …..and it had a whole lot to do with these boots right here…my very favorite boots.. Old Gringo Sora boots….my dream boots…….

This is going to be a little bit long….but I promise it will be worth it for you to stick with it…because this is a DANG good story. There was a whole secret conspiracy going on that no one here at Brave Girls Club knew about…and this is the story of how we found out.  And I want you to read this because YOU are in this story…and don’t you want to know what someone is writing about YOU?  And it is a story with some controversy, some wild and craziness and some really good stuff that ends up overcoming every #(*$^$#&TQ@ thing that we use to make us think that we aren’t allowed to love each other or work together or be sisters forever who take care of each other, no matter what our differences are.

THis isn’t a fundraising story…and I’m not asking you for anything. I just want to tell you about what YOU ALL did for me when I asked you to help me sell my boots.

I will tell you that in the end……it was not just $10,000 for the boots……but nearly $60,000 total. In nearly impossible ways. Ways that don’t really make much sense.

AND….

I will include lots of photos to make sure that you don’t get distracted. ..and because there is so much beauty that I want to share with you. And I’m just gonna beg you one more time to read all the way through this. It’s your choice whether you read it or not but I want you to know that I wrote it for YOU.(and I wrote it for me too)

You will wonder why I am veering off in weird directions, but I promise that it is all important…and that it will all come back around together………..this is a really cool story.

And there are SO MANY SPECIFIC INSTANCES that I could include here…but I am just using a few. There are hundreds of them, really. There are so many of you who I wanted to mention specifically…….but I spent the day looking at photos of how all of this REALLY happened….and I have been in tears all day looking at the hundreds of you who converged…the thousands of you who converged…and how it is escalating…and how we gotta keep this ball rolling, sisters.

We don’t have time anymore to qualify each other. We gotta love each other RIGHT NOW.

But anyway…I decided that I was going to sacrifice my favorite boots (you can read about it here if you don’t know that part of the story)I wanted to show my seriousness for my love for our sisters in Manila who need a new safe house so that more women and girls can be rescued out of sex trafficking. (again, you can read more about that here) It really, truly, just started with a little idea because of love for a sister….in Manila…I love all of my sisters in Manila….all of OUR sisters…and I knew you would too. So I wanted to walk my talk….I wanted to show you that I was going to sacrifice my favorite belonging and I was going to ask you also to sacrifice $10 or however much you could…or even something that you really loved. To sacrifice means to give up something really good for something even better. To get our sisters this safe house is even better than these boots………but what happened was even better than that…AND our sisters got their safe house too.

Ok so…first I want to tell you how I got these boots, and why they are so special to me…..

In 2011 I went through a HUGE SHIFT. Maybe it was because I turned 40….something crazy happens when you are 40…but I had this huge shift where all of a sudden I felt REALLY DONE with hurting about things from my past. I felt REALLY DONE with relationships that were hurting or exploiting or abusing my soul, I felt REALLY DONE making excuses….and I felt REALLY READY to do all of the big things that my heart wanted to do. One of the things I wanted to do was have my own solo art show. When I told a few of my close friends…it was planned within hours…so…I had a show at my dear friend, Elida’s studio right outside of Portland, in a little sweet town called Camas…..on 11/11/11 and I sold every single piece I brought…..almost 40 pieces…

And that all happened….because people showed up. SO MANY PEOPLE SHOWED UP. SO MANY BRAVE GIRLS SHOWED UP….People showed up from the whole surrounding area…BRAVE GIRLS FLEW THERE FROM ALL OVER  THE COUNTRY, and and loved ones showed up from HOME…which was a 9 hour drive or a flight to get there…….it was a full house. They showed up to love a sister. I was overwhelmed by this. Dang it, I am crying again.

I remember coming right before the show started and seeing all of my friends and family from home standing in the gallery before the show started……I will never forget that…that came so far to support me.

 

and my friends in Camas, Washington were so amazing….they had a reception and made it such a special all-day event. We had so much fun….

I love these sisters with all of my heart……but…this is not a slide show of my life…I am going somewhere with this……

The night before the art show…..I also taught a painting class at Elida’s studio….and SO MANY PEOPLE SHOWED UP…it was a full house….I met women who had taken my online courses….women who had been reading my blog for years….women who were my sisters that I had not met yet (and your sisters too) ……BRAVE GIRLS…. and so many friends had flown in from all over the country…..and they were there too….

and we made art and made art and made art………and that night….I met someone else who has become a really really really important start of this story…in fact, she took me in the back room and told me a few things……(and this is not the blog post for that story…but I want you to remember when I tell you in a few weeks…that THIS was the night that I met Lisa…) Here we are…in the back room….her telling me some pretty darned miraculous things….

Ok….so what I am trying to tell you is that over that 11/11/11 weekend……it was a whole bunch of my biggest dreams come true….all wrapped into one weekend….all of these sisters coming together….meeting each other…having a blast….and I sold 2 years of paintings…..sooooo….that made it so that I could buy these very special boots….and, in fact, I ordered them online from Camas so that they would be at my house by the time I got home. I figured it was a 40 year old bday present and a representation of stepping out to live my dreams in my BRAVE GIRL BOOTS…..of letting all of my paintings go so that I could start over fresh…..and when I got home, I put them on…..and here I am by the fire….right after I go them…I LOVE these boots. I didn’t think I could love them more than I did that day…but today, I love them even more…….and I love that they are getting packed into a box and heading out to someone very special who is gonna get some serious brave girl mojo every time she wears them….

 

But now…I must tell you how it happened that so many people showed up at the art show………because this is important. This is a BRAVE GIRL SNOWBALL EFFECT, ok?

Lots of you know that in 2004, my worst nightmare came true…and it got worse and worse and lasted for nearly 6 years. (my husband’s traumatic brain injury) I blogged about it all along……I was so lonely, so afraid, and needed so much to have a place to be able to talk honestly about my feelings and struggles and how much I wanted to be brave (brave girls did not start until 2009, so this was before that) Anyway….I blogged…and people showed up at my blog. Some of these sisters who were essentially strangers, would write me letters and notes and I am sure at the time, they had no idea that they were keeping me going. Sheesh, dang it, I am crying again because this all turns out so miraculously beautiful in the end……ok…so…..I remember getting comments on my blog from September, yes that is her name, September……I remember her commenting on my blog and it was like she really knew me…really cared about me…….I remember Janet Wilson….and her comments…..and how awesome she seemed….I remember Sandi Tyger….and her amazing funny ways…..this was all wayyy before Brave Girls Club started….but these really were my sisters….my friends.

Then, Facebook started…..

And we all became Facebook friends…now, I could know them too. I started to chat online with some of them….and Janet and I became friends who would chat nearly every night.

 

I started telling her about what I REALLY wanted to do…….Kathy and I were working SO MUCH in the corporate world….and I told Janet that we really wanted to start Brave Girls Club…every night…she would encourage me to get it rolling……..when things happened the way that they did…..and Kathy and I walked away from our jobs to start BGC….Janet got on a plane and showed up at our first Brave Girl TEST CAMP. in 2009…………so did Ali, our friend from Australia who we had never met in person…and Camille……they all showed up….and all 5 of us did the most amazing little camp….and decided that this was DEFINITELY a good idea….and booked our first real camp immediately…

 

Again…I remember going outside of the cabin and looking in at what was going on….and feeling so profoundly blessed at who had shown up for this….at the way it was so magic…at the way it was beautiful because of every unique soul there…because of the love for a sister…..to a sister……..and a sister……..

 

A sister from Nashville, and Australia and 3 from Idaho………….in the end….it didn’t really matter where any of us were from…in any way…

Well…….THEN….we started having LOTS of camps…and guess what, I finally got to meet September…and Sandi………..and so many others who had kept me going for all of those horrible years……..I finally got to hug them and look them in the eye and guess what? It was even better than I ever could have imagined…..and it made us even closer than we were before…and like I said before, I could put hundreds of names in here…but these are the photos I could track down today….and these were the girls who were there very early on……sisters for sure….your sisters, my sisters…

Here’s September…

 

And here’s Sandi…

 

Goodness gracious….that was amazing…..just like every single time we get to finally be united with the sisters we didn’t know we had…

Well……..this kept going on…and on and on and on…..and at camp…September met more Brave Girls…….and at Sandi’s camp….she met more Brave Girls….and every single Brave Girl who has ever come to camp has met other Brave Girls…and has met us…and we all became family.

One of our biggest dreams was to unite Brave Girls with each other so that no one ever had to feel alone again……but something even bigger happened that we did not expect……

AND HERE IS THE THING THAT I WANT YOU TO READ OUT OF THIS BLOG POST IF YOU DO NOT READ ANYTHING ELSE…….In a circle, at one of our camps…..at any given camp….you might find in the same circle, an elderly widow, a college student, a middle aged woman, a catholic, a buddhist, an atheist, a lesbian, a republican, a democrat, a pagan, an evangelical christian, a mormon, someone who has been married forever in a great marriage, someone who is in an abusive marriage, someone who is divorced,someone who doesn’t believe in marriage, someone who would give anything to be able to get married, someone with lots of kids, someone with no kids, an alcoholic, a food addict, an anorexic……the list goes on and on….as you know….

 

I could list SO MANY THINGS that we use to divide ourselves from each other. You will find it all in the same circle at Brave Girl Camp….every camp….going on 20 camps now. Only….in most cases…..Kathy and I are the only one who know only SOME of those details.Because of the nature of our camps……..we get straight into soul matters…..we brush past the small talk and we go straight into the important stuff. WE SEE EACH OTHER…REALLY SEE EACH OTHER. Labels are never even discussed….no one even cares. There is no time for that. We are there as souls, doing soulwork….and as strangers at first………….the beautiful thing about this is that as the week progresses….the love and support and sisterhood is so deep…..THAT NOTHING COULD EVER HAPPEN TO EVER CHANGE THE WAY WE FEEL ABOUT EACH OTHER. Even if, suddenly, you found out that you were sitting next to someone who is a member of the political party or religion or sexuality or whatever that you had been told (even by yourself) that you could NEVER have anything to do with. It is too late…..you are already madly in love with each other. None of that stuff matters…you are sisters.

So…then I attended  Matrilumina….where again, great levels of diversity exist…which is beautiful, and scary, and vulnerable………and beautiful…and scary. BUT…I learned…the same thing happens there….once we circle together…it does not matter ONE TINY BIT what our differences are….it is too late to care, we are already madly in love with each other….

 

and then I TAUGHT t at Matrilumina where, many girls who have been to Brave GIrl Camp before came to have a different experience with me….and I hoped and hoped and hoped that it will still work out….that everyone would still love each other…still give each other a chance….in spite of all of the diversity…..AND…my friends….it happend AGAIN…

 

I thought…man…I wish EVERY WOMAN from EVERY CLASS and EVERY CAMP and EVERY OTHER RETREAT could all just meet each other……….because I know for sure they would fall in love with each other before they had a chance to even ask about their differences……they would know for sure THAT WE ARE ALL SISTERS…..and WE HAVE GOT TO START TAKING CARE OF EACH OTHER…NO MORE QUALIFYING EACH OTHER!!!

So….back to the boots………….I announced that I would give my boots up for the auction. Immediately other Brave Girls from all over the world wanted to give up their favorite things, or wanted to make art to auction, or just wanted to donate money. This was all done in A VERY SHORT TIME…a MATTER OF DAYS….Kathy sat with the team for 2 days straight entering items into the auction website, ITEMS THAT ALL OF YOU DONATED!!! The team at BGC spent days doing this…while running the company simultaneously. We had NO IDEA this would get so big. And we needed the money fast for the safe house, so we decided to make it a 24 hour auction….Thursday night to Friday night……

Well….I don’t know if you watched….but it was very very very exciting….Another person who came into my life in all sort of crazy ways in the last few years is Brandi…..she started SHE’S WORTH IT…and when I found out about human trafficking in late 2011…..I found her…and she educated me. She helped us EVERY STEP OF THE WAY with this fundraiser…setting up the cash donation site and everything that goes along with that…….she is a story for another day. She flew to Boise to spend the weekend with me shortly after we met….where we stayed up all night talking about how to help our sisters in slavery….to see this auction happen together was pretty awesome for us…here’s us lighting sparklers out at the ranch….

 

Ok…so….back to the boots….

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw how high the boots were going. How much money they were getting. I saw first $500 and $1000 and then $1500 and then $1800 and then it started getting VERY CRAZY. $2000…..$3000…..$4000…….

and all of the other beautiful items were going too……..for a LOT! Kathy and I kept texting each other….we are up to $5000 in bids!!! We are up to $10,000 in bids!!!!!! We are at $15,000 in bids!!! OH MY GOSH!!! ANd we are at $30,000 in cash bids!!!!!!!!!!!! You can imagine how exciting that was!!! We were exhausted from all of the nights of preparation but we stayed up all night to watch the bids go up. The auction ended at 1:00am our time. Midnight went by and the boots were still climbing…..all of the bids were still climbing….the cash donations were still climbing…..at 1:00am the boots were at nearly $5000 and we had over $20,000 in bids!!!!! WE WERE AT OVER $50,000 in total donations…..

WELL……….

At exactly 1:00am I got a facebook message from Lisa…..who I met at camp a few years ago…and who like all of you, has become such an important sister to me….here’s us on a long walk at camp…and again at Matrilumina last month…

 

 

The boots…the message from Lisa…..ok…by this time…I was so super excited about letting go of my beloved boots….really….they were going to do SO MUCH GOOD in Manila……

Lisa sent me a message and said….please go to this Facebook Page….“Melody’s Boot Fund” Brave Girls from all over the world were working together to raise money to win the bid to buy my boots, because they wanted to give them back to me………..OH THE TEARS……

Then….I clicked on the ABOUT page of this Facebook page…and there, I saw the faces of all of the different Brave Girls from all of the years….WORKING TOGETHER…FINALLY MEETING EACH OTHER……THEY ALL SHOWED UP…FOR THE LOVE OF A SISTER.

and I can say…that at 1:05am…..in my dark house…..completely exhausted….I just sat and bawled my eyes out…I saw SEPTEMBER and SANDI and JANET and LISA and DIANNE and my Matrilumina friends…..and sooooooooooooo many others…all on the same page.

So….in the end, they didn’t win the boots. But they sure won my heart. They sure won hundreds more sisterhoods with each other as they worked for 24 hours together to make it happen. They sure won what is most important. And…they raised nearly $5000………….so, with the winning bid, and their money…and the money from another amazing donor who offered me $1000 in donations to not auction off my boots so I could keep them (such kind hearts you all are)….these boots ended up raising nearly $10,000…..and brought sisters together from all over the world, all walks of life….all religions…all ages….all political beliefs….JUST SISTERS….JUST SOULS. And, it’s too late, they are all already in love with each other, and there is nothing that can ever change that.

And that, my friends….is the best news ever.

AND….THE DAHLIA HOUSE IS NOW A REALITY (and so much more about that coming soon….but I wanted to tell you this story and say THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART) …..AND….beg you to keep the ball rolling. Throw away your list of qualifiers. Love each other NOW…..no matter what. Let’s take care of each other….let’s be good to each other.

LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH,

melody

p.s. I want to hear YOUR SIDE OF THE STORY….I still don’t know….anyone who was involved in this…..I would love to see it through YOUR eyes. I have heard that many of you have had beautiful experiences with those who won your items, etc….would love to hear ALL of those stories!!!!!

And big huge ENORMOUS THANK YOU’S to every single one of you from wherever you are who participated in this auction!!!!! Thank you for donating your beautiful treasures!! Thank you for every single bid and every single dollar that you contributed!!! I know that for each of you there is a story of your own sacrifice, your own story of why you wanted to join together with us to do this big amazing thing for our sisters in Manila! WE LOVE YOU!!! We appreciate you!! Our sisters in Manila talk about you and want us to pass along their unbelievable gratitude, gratitude that you care for them, that you even know they are there and that you are extending your hand to lift them. THANK YOU! Don’t ever doubt that YOU BELONG!! We hope to continue to hear from you in emails and through the blog and through our Facebook page and maybe even meet you in person one day. We would love to hear YOUR STORY, your point of view on this Dahlia House experience!!! YOU MATTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You really really really matter and we’re so thankful to YOU FOR BEING PART OF THIS TRIBE OF BRAVE GIRLS!!!

 

Happy Friday, beautiful brave girls!!! We had a super fun week at the BG Headquarters… there has been lots of excitement going around over here. We’ve all been saying “ONLY ___ days until ___!” about all of the different things coming up in our individual lives.  And warm weather showed up. And we got to celebrate together for reaching one of our team goals… All of that goodness kept us energized and joyful all week long! Most of us spent our time doing work on our computers again, organizing all the auction winners and donors, editing videos, launching part two of the Brave Girl line, designing more products for next year, and a WHOLE LOT of other (more technical but no less important) things. Here are some fun pictures of our happenings this week… Enjoy!

Brock and Melody spend lots and lots of quality time together during the production of classes. Here they are filming a little snippet for Art School 2 – The Wings Session.

Spring finally made its debut FOR REAL! We showed up at Brave River Ranch one day and discovered that all the trees were blooming soooo beautifully, the grass was all of the sudden green, and the birds were singing all throughout the forest. It gets so magical there in the springtime. I’m sure you’ll see more pictures of the gorgeousness very soon.

And here’s an awesome idea that Sabrina came up with… isn’t it pretty?! Just go out and cut a few branches from a blooming tree and pop them in a vase with some rocks in the bottom. Instant fancy dinner table!

In the auction last weekend, we offered a couple Brave Girl tote bags stuffed with all sorts of Brave Girl goodies. Let me tell you, the girls who were the winning bidders are in for a treat! I spent some time this week preparing the totes to be shipped out to those lucky ladies.

This is just some of what was included… lots of Authentic Brave Girl Gear. I won’t say too much; I don’t want to ruin the little surprises for the winners!

That bag was pretty darn full after everything was wrapped up with bows and all placed in one spot. I wish I could watch the beautiful girls opening these up!

So here’s the box, all packed up with an overstuffed tote bag of treasures, surrounded by lots of packing bubbles to keep it in supreme condition. I might have gone a little overboard with stamping the Brave Girl logo a hundred times on all sides. But that box is totally bursting with love!

Melody had a completely packed week, designing artwork for some amazing new products and writing a few really wonderful blog posts (coming soon!)… She ended the week with going to the dentist. And she has some life-changing advice for you: go to the dentist, or you will pay. But she’s really excited because she gets to become the queen of flossing!

This is Brock and Sabrina, super excited to be on our way to celebrate a team victory! Last week we made a goal as the BG Team… and we decided that if we could reach that goal, we would go out to lunch together to celebrate. During our morning meeting on Monday, we checked on our progress and we had gone beyond what our goal was! So later in the week we went to Red Robin and had a grand ol’ time together, laughing and talking about non work-related topics. And filling our bellies with scrumptious eats, of course. We all wish you could have been there with us.

And that’s all, folks. Cheers!

 

Wishing you the most wonderful weekend! See you next week.

xoxo -malary & the brave girls team

 

Dear sparkling girl,

We all need more words of encouragement and less words of judgment.

We all need more hugs and less dirty looks.

We all need more congratulations and less guilt trips.

We all need more random acts of kindness and less time spent gossipping.

We all need to be loved more without conditions or expectations…..we all do.

Thank you for being the one who does it…..who loves unconditionally and spreads
joy and works in kindness and gives big encouraging hugs…..

You are changing your world and your life and everyone around you with each small
act…..you are a hero…..keep up the great work and keep passing it on.

You are beloved.

Xoxo

Ok….get ready for some serious gorgeousness!!!

These products are now available in our SHOPPE at 12noon Mountain time….

Don’t you love these signs? There are several of them so make sure you look through the shoppe to see them all! They are an amazing price, too!!! CLICK HERE IF YOU JUST WANT TO HEAD TO THE SHOPPE NOW!

 

We also have these amazing gift sets (gifts for you…gifts for others!!) and they come in a super amazing box that will flip up as a picture frame…with a little photo album inside of it….PERFECT for your girlfriends, or for Mother’s Day…..fill with special photos and you have the most amazing and meaningful gift, ever!

 

THese I LOOOOOOVE and we also have several of these….VERY THICK, DEEP wall canvases that are stretched with BURLAP and the art is actually printed heavily and vividly right on the burlap…these are SO AMAZING and such beautiful wall art!!!!

 

We have gifts in every price range….including happy little reminders of good and true words that you can hang all over your house and work spaces…..like these beautiful doorknob hangers…

 

AND….we all need a perfect place to keep our treasures!!! There are 3 new boxes, with beautiful feet….and there are just as beautiful on the inside as they are on the outside….you are going to LOVE THEM!!

 

We have lots of new little journals (very affordable) with beautiful, natural paper on the inside……..this one is my favorite……because, this is one of the things I believe most in life….different is beautiful…

 

and these little ones are adorable little gifts too….

 

Here’s another of the big burlap wall art pieces…it is SO GORGEOUS and SO SUBSTANTIAL in person……..head on over to the SHOPPE….you will be so glad that you did!! And hurry…on our first release everything sold out in a few hours….But not to worry….we will backorder anything for you and get it to you within a few weeks! We love you so much and hope these products are just another little reminder of all of the things we want most for you…..happiness, color, bravery, meaning and LIVING A GREAT BIG LIFE.

xoxox -melody , kathy and the team

I don’t know about you, but I love to read about what other bloggers are up to in their daily lives other than all the exciting stuff. I usually don’t even know them, but there is something fun about knowing the things that go on behind the scenes… it’s interesting! Isn’t it? Here at Brave Girls Club, it seems that we are always up to something big (and we totally are always up to something big), but we also do regular little things, regular ordinary things that keep things going around here! So, we decided to start a new series of weekly posts all about what we do behind our big red curtain– whether we’re at the BG Clubhouse, Brave River Ranch, in the Art Barn, or any other wild and fun places that we happen to be. We hope you enjoy taking a peak into our daily lives and getting to know our amazing staff!!!

 

This week has been crazy and busy, we have been working on really incredible things… like setting up an auction to buy the Dahlia house, launching a beautiful new line of accessories,  getting a load of truth cards ready to send with a brave girl to SE Asia (more about that tomorrow), continuing the production of our online classes, and so much more! That’s a lot of stuff, right?? Okay, well… here’s what we look like when we work on all of that:

 

 

We look a bit different from the happenings you see on the front lines of Brave Girls Club, don’t we?! Maybe a little less party-like? Don’t worry, we still party quite often! But we really are just regular people… sitting on regular chairs… with regular computers in front of us a lot of the time. But we do it because we love it and we do it because we love YOU!

 

This week we got the treat of having Jackson over at the Clubhouse to hang out with us for a whole day… we love it when he is with us! He made himself a cute little kid chair with a couple pillows and started giggling when we made any eye contact with him… A few minutes after I took this picture, I looked over at him and he had one pillow under each arm with his legs crossed. So adorable.

___________________________________________

And in case you didn’t see the announcement on the blog or Facebook earlier this week, on Tuesday we launched the beautiful new line- BRAVE GIRL by Melody Ross. Everything is so deliciously beautiful and detailed and just gorgeous. If you haven’t checked it out already, head over to shop.bravegirlsclub.com

And the result of launching that new line was packing LOTS and lots of orders. We pack things extra special around here!

Every morning, we meet at the Clubhouse for a team meeting. You BETTER be on time… otherwise,  you have to get up on the coffee table and show off your dance moves. We saw a few sweet dances this week, Jeff was the only one caught on camera… Lucky him.

This week we even got the privilege to prepare another batch of truth cards to go out! We are sending them with a very brave girl who you will hear more about tomorrow… She is going to several places in Asia and she will be giving out some of these treasures while she is there. THANK YOU again for sending such an abundance of truth cards in the past few months! The kids were recruited to help place each card lovingly in its own cellophane sleeve… many hands make light work and they did it with smiles on their faces!

P.S. The auction went wayyyyy beyond what we ever even imagined!! I wish we could just embrace you all and express how THANKFUL we are for your generosity in helping us reach our goal (plus so much more) to get the Dahlia house. Melody’s boots ended up making %10,000 alone… Can you believe it??!! We’ll have a beautiful story on that later… Our hearts are so full today. You angels raised $20,981 in less than two days– that is miraculous!!  The auction results added with the cash donations totals at more than $50,000. Wow, girls… just WOW!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU… It is an absolute honor for us to witness this overwhelming goodnesss from you.

Well, that’s what happened at BG Headquarters this week, folks! Wishing you a weekend full of so much love… xoxo

Aren’t these beautiful boots? Well..they are my most prized possession and they could be yours!! I said I was going to do it and you can bet that I am. Yes, tears have been shed over this…but it wouldn’t be a sacrifice if I didn’t love these boots so much, now would it?

They really are my most prized possession. I never would EVER have imagined myself spending the kind of money that these cost on a clothing item. However…I decided that if I saved and sacrificed…these would be my reward for some really hard work.

I had my first solo art show at the end of 2011…sold 36 paintings…a body of work that took me years to finish. When I was done….these boots were my reward. Their sweetness has not worn off in my heart. They sit on a pedestal in my closet and I often walk over and rub them, turn them around and stare at them…blow kissees at them…

 

Old Gringo, Sora … retail price over $500

..and I’m going to be honest and tell you that there is a weak part of me that hoped that we would have all of the money raised so that auctioning the boots would not be necessary…

…but it is time to walk the talk, my friends.

I SAW WHAT I SAW IN MANILA AND I WALKED WHERE I WALKED AND I FELL IN LOVE WITH OUR SISTERS THERE AND I REFUSE TO DO NOTHING. Along with FULL CIRCLE EXCHANGE, we dived right into the world of human trafficking and we will never be the same.

And these boots are so beautiful…and so are the hundreds of other things we are auctioning off…but I don’t want to lose sight of why we are doing this….we are doing this, because we have sisters in Manila, and all over the world…who are enslaved and forced to do horrific things in “VIP ROOMS” like this one…that I saw with my own eyes in a brothel or “bar” on the streets of Manila….where I met my first trafficked girls and women…at a karaoke bar/brothel by night..and a notary public business by day…this was the first one I stood inside of…

 

the room that left me speechless, choking, without breath or words….a little cave in the corner, with a dirty curtain and a dirty sheet covering this awful bed-like thing….

“THE VIP ROOM”

a room where souls are stripped and turned to throw-away bodies.

….so today, I am begging you to stand up and refuse to do nothing. I am going to ask you to do something…anything.

Alongside FULL CIRCLE EXCHANGE, and SHE’S WORTH IT, our partners in fighting human trafficking, We are hosting an auction tomorrow….to sell things that many of you have donated…many of our favorite belongings, works of art and services………all of the proceeds will go to buy the Dahlia House in Manila.  A new house through the amazing efforts of Kenny Sacht and WIPE EVERY TEAR.

On Monday, the house must be purchased or the deal is off. That is why we are in such a big hurry. These are the girls who live in the small safe house now…we are buying a bigger one….there are 5 more girls waiting to come and live there. It is one thing to be rescued..it is another to be able to stay free. Without a home…they can not stay free…

I am of the praying variety. I pray a lot. I get myself in all sorts of situations that I need help with….often needing miracles…so I pray. Yesterday I cried A LOT because things felt a little bit beyond possibility.

It is Spring Break…it was my daughter’s 17th Birthday. My new line of products were launching that day. ALL OF IT WOULD HAVE TO BE SET ASIDE to make this happen. So…we all sat down….and we decided that not only is this cause worth my favorite boots…but Madi decided it was worth sacrificing her birthday, her birthday presents, her birthday party…so it could all be donated… the time, the money, the energy. The Brave Girls Club team decided that our product launch could be set aside to make this happen……and my kids decided that all of our Spring Break plans could be set aside to make this happen.

Here is a little 1 minute plea from my 17 year old daughter, who gave up her birthday to make this happen…

Movie on 2013-03-27 at 12.16

So we are spending this time putting together this auction…..our last effort to raise the money for Dahlia House.

The most beautiful thing happened when I said I was going to sell my most prized possession….a whole bunch of others stood up and said they would do the same…and others said they would CREATE something JUST for this auction. I love this amazing painting from world renowned artist, Pixie Campbell. She painted it as a tribute to the bravery of these girls..and ANYONE who escapes any kind of slavery…..

And…..if YOU feel called to help. Now’s the time, beautiful soul. We need you now. We need several thousand more dollars by Easter Sunday so the deal can get sealed on Monday.

The auction will be THURSDAY AND FRIDAY…..if you want to just donate…go HERE and you can make a tax deductable donation of any amount…all of it adds up and all of it helps….we have gotten a very long way $10, $20 and $100 at a time … we know we can finish out strong….

If you haven’t seen it yet…here’s a video explaining what we are trying to do…

 CLICK HERE TO WATCH ON YOUTUBE

Here are some more items you will see in the auction that starts THURSDAY NIGHT and goes til FRIDAY NIGHT….

REMEMBER THESE ARE JUST SOME OF THE MANY BEAUTIFUL  ITEMS WE WILL HAVE IN THE AUCTION….100% of proceeds go to the Dahlia House in Manila

THESE ARE ALL ITEMS DONATED BY YOUR BRAVE GIRL SISTERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD TO HELP BUY THE DAHLIA HOUSE!

ANOTHER PAIR of brand new Old Gringos…worth over $500 … size 8.5

 

an amazing pair of vintage boots…I love these!!

 

The most incredible vintage jacket!!

Several gorgeous handmade PEACE necklaces

2 authentic Jeanne Oliver Designs bags

An amazing vintage Poloroid camera that works perfectly + 3 packages of film

and more original art!

an amazing selection of vintage tooled purses……so gorgeous!

and a favorite original painting by artist Kolleen Harrison of LoveWild ….with a beautiful little story behind it….

We even have a genuine Louis Vuitton handbag………donated by Jeanette Priddy from Full Circle Exchange…one of her favorite things she is letting go of…

THis is just a very small sampling of the beautiful things to be found!

The auction will be held starting Thursday evening through readysetauction and we will have more details for you very soon!

Remember as you are buying…this is not just to purchase a lot of wonderful, beautiful, favorite things…this is for these girls…our sisters. Be generous with your bids…it will do SO MUCH GOOD!

and…thank YOU for BEING so so sooo good.

Sending you all so much love,

melody