Here's to 2016!

Hello, hope you all had a nice Xmas and New Year.

I've been busy adding more handmade items to my FB page over the past couple of weeks and have a nice selection of items - bracelets, necklaces, fabric flower brooches and earrings plus other odd bits and bobs. No sales as yet but its still early days.

Hopefully this year we can raise more than the £730 raised last year which was split between AMMF and womb cancer research.

The Etsy shop has a few items left in it but will close once the listings expire.

Starting to make plans for the next auction which will be for AMMF and will run from 12noon Sunday 20th March until 6pm Tuesday 22nd March 2016.It would have been Mom's 80th Birthday on 21st March.

Please pop over to the FB page and say hello.

Until next time - take care. xx

End of year round up!

Hello again!
Been a long time since I updated you but there has been a lot going on and I've also been dealing with a lot of health issues related to my cancer treatment.

Anyway, if you have been following this blog then you will know that throughout 2015 I have been selling my handmade jewellery to help raise funds for 2 very good causes - AMMF, the UK's only cholangiocarcinoma or bile duct cancer charity and a womb cancer research project.

Well, just before Xmas the total raised stood at £730 so I was able to pay £365 into each Justgiving account. I was really pleased to have raised such a huge amount, far more than I thought I would at the beginning of the year.

I am doing the same again throughout 2016, with the money going 50/50 to AMMF and Womb Cancer Support UK, (WCSUK)  the national organisation that I run that supports women who have been diagnosed with womb cancer and also raises much needed awareness of this cancer as, despite it being the 4th most common female cancer in UK, there is no national awareness campaign.

The money raised for WCSUK will help pay for the awareness leaflets and their distribution around the UK.

I was selling items through an Etsy store but have decided to go back to doing it through Facebook, as not only is there no fees to pay but despite FB making it difficult for pages to be seen, most of my sales from the Etsy shop have come via me sharing posts on FB.
Plus it's easier to keep things together, for me anyway!!

So, why not pop over to the FB page and have a look around. https://www.facebook.com/buteartism/

I shall be running an online auction again for AMMF, in memory of Mom who died from cholangiocarcinoma on 5th Dec 2013 and there will be some lovely items up for grabs there.

Hope you all had a nice Xmas and I wish you all the best for 2016.

Etsy Sales Update

If you've been following this blog you will know that I am making and selling items to help raise funds for good causes.

At the moment, those good causes are AMMF - the UK's only cholangiocarcinoma charity and a womb cancer research project.

You can see the items that are currently for sale here and the total raised so far, which is being split 50/50 between the 2 good causes is £145.50.

So pleased to be able to raise funds for these 2 good causes and will donate the money to them at the end of this year. Lets hope I can get to the £200 mark before then.

Etsy Sales Galore!!

Hello again, hope you are all well.
Thought summer had arrived up here on my little island but it seems to have decided to change its mind and disappear again as its now quite windy and chilly, more like October than May.
Anyway, just a brief update on my Etsy store sales.

If you remember from my last post, I am now selling items from my Etsy store with all proceeds going to 2 very good causes.
The first is a womb cancer research project that I am helping to raise funds for; I was diagnosed with womb cancer at the end of 2009 and there is very little awareness or research into this cancer despite it being the 4th most common cancer in women.
The other good cause I am raising funds for is AMMF - they are the only UK charity for Cholangiocarcinoma or bile duct cancer which is the cancer that my Mom died from in Dec 2013.

I have a selection of jewellery and artwork in the Etsy store and so far sales have raised £78.50 which will be split 50/50 between to 2 good causes at the end of the year.

You can check out the store here

Hello again!

Hello, as some of you will remember from the last blog post back in December, I said I was changing the way that I fundraise as FB has been messing about with the way it shares posts recently and as a result my post reach had dropped dramatically which meant that I wasn't selling anything and therefore not being able to raise any money.

I now have an Etsy store which has some nice bits of jewellery and some of my artwork in and the proceeds are being split 50/50 between AMMF, which is the UK's only cholangiocarcinoma or bile duct cancer charity. This is the cancer that Mom died of in Dec 2013. The other 50% is going to the womb cancer research project that I have been helping to raise funds for over the past 3 years.

Had 2 sales from the Etsy store so far and the money will be split at the end of the year between the 2 good causes.

In March I also help my 2nd annual auction for AMMF in memory of Mom. It was done over the weekend of what would have been her Birthday and it raised £119 which brings the total raised for AMMF to £471.50.

The next auction will be the one in September for the womb cancer research project. Why September I hear you ask? Well, September is womb cancer awareness month and so its an appropriate time to raise some money and also hopefully lots of awareness for this cancer.

If you would like to donate to either of these good causes then you can. The links are here:

The womb cancer research is here https://www.justgiving.com/Kaz-Molloy1/
AMMF is here https://www.justgiving.com/Kaz-Molloy2/

I'll be back soon with another update. xx

A change of direction.

As many of you may know, I have been raising funds for Macmillan Cancer Support for the past few years, since I was diagnosed with womb cancer in Dec 2009.
I love beads - especially handmade glass beads and have been making and selling pieces of handmade jewellery and accessories to help raise funds through my FB pages, buteartism and Angels of Hope and also here on the island.
Thanks to some lovely people who have bought items and also donated items to some of my online auctions, since 2010 I have raised over £1,200 for Macmillan Cancer Support.
Over the past few years I have also been raising funds for a womb cancer research project Fundraising for womb cancer research and last year I started raising funds for AMMF - which is the UK's only cholangiocarcinoma (or bile duct cancer) charity. This is the cancer that my Mom died from in Dec. 2013.
Since FB started messing around with post reach it has become increasingly difficult for posts to be seen and therefore I have been unable to sell as many items in 2014. I have almost 700 likers on the main buteartism page and yet some posts only reach 20 or 30 people!!
So I've made the decision to close down the Angels for Hope page and also to take down my items that are for sale on the buteartism page, although I will still continue to hold online auctions there occasionally.
The first will be in March and will be for AMMF. Then in September there will be another auction to help raise funds for a womb cancer project.
In between, there will be small flash sales for various good causes and I will continue to donate items to other auctions being run to help various other good causes.
I hope you will check out the pages and maybe even think about joining in the various auctions.
I know I've said before that I would try and keep the blog updated regularly and I will try, I promise. :-)

In memory of Mom

As some of you may be aware I lost my Mom just before Xmas 2013. She died of cancer, a rare and aggressive liver cancer that affects the bile ducts called cholangiocarcinoma.
She had been diagnosed 5 weeks previously and told that she had 4-6 months. So you can image that it can as even more of a shock when she died just 5 weeks after getting her diagnosis.

The last few months have been very hard for myself and my family; trying to come to terms with Moms illness and diagnosis and then her death.

Having had cancer myself, I knew that Mom would not be able to cope with the chemotherapy that was the only option that was open to her, even though we were told it may only prolong her life by a couple of months, if that.

As it was, Mom decided that she didn't want any treatment. She eventually went into a hospice and died there 2 days later.

Living so far away from her, and with my own health being not good, meant that I didn't see her before she died. I had seen her 4 weeks previously when we went down to visit her when she was diagnosed and had intended to go again once she was settled in the hospice, but sadly she passed away before I could get there.

Since her death I have found it increasingly difficult to cope. The feeling of helplessness has been overwhelming. I was able to fight for myself through my own cancer diagnosis and treatment but I couldn't do it for my Mom. I wanted to wrap her in cotton wool and protect her from the awful things that were happening to her body. I felt totally helpless being so far away, knowing there was nothing I could do.

21st March would have been her Birthday. I knew it would be a difficult time, not just for me but for the whole family. I wanted to do something in her memory. My own ill health prevented me from running a marathon, or climbing any mountains or jumping out of a aeroplane!!!

So I decided to do what I do best, run a fundraising auction in her memory. I decided to raise funds for AMMF - the only cholangiocarcinoma charity in UK.

The auction can be found here Mom's Auction and runs until 6pm Sun 23rd March. There are lots of lovely handmade items to bid on and I'm hoping that I can raise at least £250 for AMMF.

I've decided to do one for them every year in memory of Mom - they need money to help fund research as well and it also helps raise awareness of them and the cancer that kills around 1,800 people each year in the UK. It will also help me cope each year as her Birthday comes round.

Please check out the AMMF website for more information.

Thank you.