Partner-Project Highlight 1: Sewing Projects at Jesse’s House

This is the first in a series of blogs highlighting some of our most unique projects of 2019 and the amazing partner organizations we completed them with! Check out our project with Georgia Center for Child Advocacy to continue the series.

The Project:

Paint Love does more than just paint! Author Lisa Stauffer, who has been a Paint Love Artist since 2017, led two amazing sewing projects at Jesse’s House in April. The materials for both projects consisted of old jeans—so if you have an old pair lying around consider upcycling them in one of these cool ways or grab a pair from a thrift shop if you want to try these projects! According to Lisa, “in both these projects the participants designed their items, measured and cut the fabric, learned simple sewing skills like hemming and attaching buttons, and used their creativity to decorate the items however they wanted. We hoped to give these teens not only new sewing skills but confidence in their ability to work with fabric and a resulting creative item they’d be proud to wear.”

The first project “upcycled old jeans into bracelets and headbands, with the participants doing custom beadwork for decoration,” as seen in the photo of Lisa’s example project above! The second project “involved upcycling jeans into tote bags/purses. We used the back (or front) of the jeans, folding the fabric at the midseam so that the bag retained the jean’s original pockets.” Lisa says, “I still carry the one I made as a demo”!

Paint Love staff member Dani Frank, “remember[s] one of the highlights from the bag project was that Lisa brought all different fun types of jeans with different designs, zippers, loops, etc. for the girls to choose from to create their bags with. The girls loved picking their jeans, creating their bags, and then adding different embellishments like patches, ribbon, etc”!

The Partner Organization:

Jesse’s House strives to provide safe and structured care in a nurturing environment to at-risk girls in order to adequately prepare them for life. The shelter serves high risk girls between the ages of seven and seventeen who are referred from the Department of Family and Children’s Services or Department of Juvenile Justice; strives to reunify the residents with their families whenever possible; and provides a safe house until permanent placement is found.

Jesse’s House has been a Paint Love Partner since 2015, and Paint Love completed four projects at Jesse’s House in 2019. Paint Love aims to have artists commit to working at Jesse’s House consistently, in order to develop on-going relationships and a foundation of trust with the girls. Paint Love staff members, such as Dani, “LOVE going to Jesse’s House. The girls become very invested in whatever project they are working on and work very hard to create amazing art work!” Artist Lisa noted that “having plenty of volunteers for” the sewing “project was terrific. The one-to-one interactions made this very personal and special.”

Interested in volunteering with Paint Love?

Or, make a donation of $250.00 to fund our next project at Jesse’s House!