The end is nigh......sadly.

Well, thanks to some nasty vindictive lowlife my fundraising efforts will shortly cease.
I have apparently been reported to the DWP for benefiting from what I do and my husband was called into the local job centre on Thursday for what he believed was a routine interview.
The woman immediately started talking about me and what I do with Womb Cancer Support UK (WCSUK) and my other fundraising activities and said that an anonymous call had been made to the DWP fraudline saying that I was profiting from the money I raised.
Thankfully hubby knows enough about what I do to be able to explain to her and she accepted his explanation and said no further action would be taken.

When he came back home and told me what had happened I think you can guess my reaction. I have always been totally open about what I do; I keep records of everything and have always donated 100% of proceeds to the charity or good causes concerned.
To suggest that I have been somehow profiting out of what I do with WCSUK made me so angry. I have spent the last 5+ years working so hard to raise awareness of womb cancer and support women who have been diagnosed whilst dealing with the long term side effects of my own womb cancer diagnosis and treatment. I raise funds not only to support the awareness campaign that we run but also for various other good causes and have raised a few thousand pounds over the past 6 years for Macmillan; CRUK and many other charities etc.

I have taken the decision therefore to stop selling my handmade items which ultimately means that all the various charities and good causes I support will no longer benefit. The woman from the DWP said that if I was reported again, which is highly likely if the person concerned is as nasty and vindictive as they would appear, then they would have to investigate again and the assessor may not be so willing to accept the explanation next time.

WCSUK has and always will be my priority and I will not let anything harm what I do there. I have had some wonderful messages of support from the women in the chat group and other friends and I will continue to do what I believe to be the right thing.

Midsummer madness

Well, July us almost at an end - where has this year gone?

Already seeing posts on FB for "whispers" - Christmas!!!!!

Not been doing much crafting lately - mostly due to ill health but I do have the occasional burst of creativity and manage to make a few things.

Been using up some of my stash of beads so have been making lots of beaded bracelets. These will be packed up later on and sent off to AMMF for them to pass onto others who are doing fundraising events.

Made quite a few bracelets but you can't see where I've been in the stash of beads!!!! Guess I need to make some more!!

The total of sales made so far this year is £187.50 which of course will be split at the end of the year between AMMF and WCSUK.

The womb cancer auction will be at the end of September - already have some items in the album which you can see here

See you soon.

Where is summer?

Well, July has arrived but sadly summer seems to have got lost somewhere.
The weather up here on west coast of Scotland has been more like November than June and July.
The sun is trying to shine today - in between the heavy showers!!!

Sadly, there isn't much to talk about really as sales have been very slow - mainly due to FB not showing posts. Post reach is down to single figures on most posts despite me having nearly 800 likers. Getting a but depressed to be honest so I can understand how some of the small businesses are feeling.
Not made a sale since the end of May now so the amount of money that I'm raising for AMMF and WCSUK is looking a bit disappointing. Hopefully things will pick up towards the end of the year.

Found a stash of lovely handmade focal beads that I hadn't found a use for so have turned them into some funky pendants with some suede effect tassels that I bought for something else. Quite pleased with the results.

You can find these and the others on the FB page

I am also sorting things out for the next auction which will be for womb cancer and will be at the end of September. Already have some lovely items listed - you can check the album out here 
Hopefully we have a few more donated items to come so am looking forward to adding them soon.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Waste not, want not!!

I hate waste, especially if it can be avoided.

Sometimes crafting can be a bit of a tricky ground as the craft supply industry seems intent on getting us to buy more and more stuff.

However, I like to try and re-use as much as possible or at least find new uses for things whenever I can.

Since making the fabric flower brooches, I'd collected a bag of fabric scraps that were not big enough to use for the flowers but I didn't want to throw them out.

Trying to find something to do with them was taxing my brain slightly - I'm not particularly interested in sewing. Making the flowers was really the extent of my sewing capabilities so I needed to find something else.

Eventually I found something suitable - so am happy now to announce that I am making fabric covered buttons!!!!
OK, maybe not worth a fanfare but I'm quite pleased with them and at least its a bit less fabric ending up in the bin.

You can find them for sale here

At the moment they come in two sizes but I will add some other sizes if they prove popular.

As always proceeds will be going to my 2 good causes AMMF and WCSUK

Fancy a bargain bit of bling??

Been busy making lots of stuff again over the past couple of weeks and then suddenly realised just how much stuff I have just waiting for new homes!!!

Guess my mojo has been working overtime recently so I have decided to have a 24 hour flash sale again this weekend so raise some more money for AMMF and Womb Cancer Support UK.

The sale runs from 6pm Saturday to 6pm Sunday and everything is £5 or under so there will be lots of bargains to be had. Great way to stock up on gifts or even just treat yourself to something nice for all those lovely summer outfits you'll be wearing in this heatwave we are going to have this summer!!

The sale will be run on Facebook here and items will be listed during the 24 hours so keep popping back for a look.

Have a nice Bank Holiday weekend (although technically its not a BH here in Scotland) and I hope the weather is nice for you.

Until next time!

Project Declutter

Over the past few weeks hubby and I have been having a major clear out.
A combination of too much stuff and a very small flat has meant that we have had to be pretty ruthless and get rid of a lot of stuff.
The fact that I do a lot of different craft stuff and hubby likes to paint and therefore has a lot of art related stuff means that our tiny flat is bursting at the seams so it was time to bite the bullet!
I set up a FB page specifically for all our junk - I mean precious stash of goodies!!
Quite a lot has sold but there is still some stuff left if you are interested. Why not pop over and have a look here
As is usually the case, you can't see where the stuff has gone from. The flat seems just as cluttered as it was beforehand!!
Never mind, at least its forced us to have a good sort out and I even came across some stuff that I had forgotten about!!
Happy Spring Cleaning!!

It's a struggle!

Well, if you run a page on Facebook you have probably noticed by now that they have been tinkering about with things yet again!!

This is the latest in a long line of so called improvements but in reality it is nothing of the sort.

Facebook seem determined to do as much as they can to limit post reach and therefore are trying to force page owners to pay to get their posts seen by people who have liked the page.

I think its totally out of order and is hurting an awful lot of small businesses.

I have 747 likers on my page yet my post reach has been as low as 4 on 2 separate occasons over the past few days. Even accounting for posting at different times of the day, my post reach rarely reaches double figures.

This was evident during the recent online auction I ran last month when there were hardly any bids because people were not seeing any of the posts.

It has got to the point now where I am wondering if it's worth being on FB.

As some of you know, I make and sell my items to raise funds for charity and good causes. As a result of these FB changes I have hardly made any sales this year so far - quite simply because no one is seeing any of my posts. This is very frustrating, not lease because it means that the good causes are loosing out on funds.

I recently contacted AMMF, who are the charity I raise funds for, and asked if they knew of any fundraisers who would be interested in some handmade items to sell at events. They replied that they accepted items and then passed them onto people who were holding fundraising events for them so I sent them a big parcel of goodies which they were very grateful for.

I think this is what I will be doing from no on. I'll make the items; post details on the FB page so people can see what I'm making and then parcel them up and send them onto AMMF so they can pass them on. They will still be getting the money - which is all that matters really.

I shall still do my online auction for AMMF each March in Mom's memory but there doesn't seem much point in trying to sell stuff via FB if no one is seeing any of the posts.

So over the next few weeks I shall be taking stuff off my FB page and parcelling some more goodies up for AMMF.

Have the FB changes affected you in anyway. Let me know in the comments section below as I'd be interested to hear from others.

Kaz