A common thread...

I was blown away earlier this week when I visited Travelingmama Tina's blog and discovered her plans to help support a deprived Moroccan school through her newly opened Etsy shop.

For those of you not familiar with Travelingmama: Tina and her family live in Morocco and document and share their daily lives through their wonderful photographs and blogs.

Living in a country where 80 % of the women cannot read or write Tina was encouraged to hear that the government was to offer money to help repaint all of the public schools. However, Tina had heard about a school not too far from her own home that was in need of even more support.

To quote Tina 'The children walked miles and miles to attend school, but there was no fresh drinking water for them nor a restroom. Their school supplies were scarce and they had very few books to read'.

This is when Tina and her family decided to use their creativity to offer help to these children by opening an Etsy shop and by encouraging people to donate to their project.

If you want to read more of Tina's inspiring story or wish to make a donation please head on over to Travelingmama and the Travelingtribe blogs.

This week Tina has a new Inspiration Challenge running. It is based on these evocative pictures of the Medina.

Originally I was going to create a card inspired by the colours and textures of the picture above, but then I was drawn back to this amazing picture taken by Tina's son.

Look closely and you will see two tiny threads, which appear to run the length of the shop.

These tiny threads got me thinking about a poster that my Dad brought home for me when I was a teenager. I had this poster on my wall for years and it's message had a powerful effect on me as I grew up.

The poster depicted God 'knitting' all the people of the world from one long, unbroken thread. You may already be familiar with the quote which was 'We are all linked by the common thread of humanity. If we break it, we are all undone'. I decided to use that quote on my card as it seemed to fit with Tina and her family's story. I think that the way they are living their lives in Morocco is helping to keep those threads nice and strong.


After that big build up my card looks a little bit tame, but I wanted the quote to be the focal point and for it to be held by thin silver thread. I'm not going to send it to anyone, just keep it in my craftroom so that once again I can look at these words on a daily basis.

I just want to wish Tina and her family every success with this wonderful and generous project.