As you all know we threw a big bash for my birthday ( I might have mentioned it previously…) which took a lot of thought, a lot of planning and quite a lot of props! Now with props of course comes expense. I would say no expense was spared (and my husband would probably agree with that) but we did make quite a lot of the props ourselves and where we made purchases, we made them responsibly.
All in all crockery wise, we sourced just over 200 teacups and saucers, 140 side plates and around about 30 tea pots. Some of the tea pots were kindly leant to me but my step daughters mum Carole. Carole, a year ago, organised a vintage tea party to raise money for The Eve Appeal and for Womb Cancer Research and awareness, these tea pots she leant to me were left overs from this event.
I knew nothing good (maybe bankruptcy!) would come from buying these all new, so after asking on facebook if any friends/family could donate/lend me any items of crockery we started the laborious task of hunting out vintage crockery in shops! A family member also kept an eye out for me while sorting jumble and made a cracking find for me of an actual Alice in Wonderland tea cup, along with other sets for me.
My first shopping trip it became very clear that charity shops were the way forward for this task, so not only were we able to source some items cheaper than brand new, find some amazing finds and we would in actual fact be doing our bit and contributing to charity along the way. Lauren (my step daughter) and I spent a very long Saturday traipsing through Waterlooville and Petersfield on our first mission and had a very good day indeed. We managed a few trips back to the car to fill the boot up and went a little tea cup mad!
Following on from this trip, Mr B accompanied me on many a rainy Saturday afternoon, traipsing around and carrying my bags. I am pleased to report although we spent a fortune (well over budget on crockery, shushhhhhh don’t tell Mr B!!) we managed to do this and help all of these charities - Barnados / Cancer Research / Mind / British Heart Foundation / The Rowans Hospice / St Winifreds Hospice / Naomi House and Jacks Place / Sue Ryder / Macmillan / Age UK / Headway to name a few!
Well once the purchasing, storing, organising, washing, packing, unpacking, transporting, setting up, packing away, transporting, washing, drying and re-packing had been done with all this crockery; I was then in a dilemma as to what to do with it! Ebay….?? Facebook….?? Charity Shops…?? Well I settled on good old facebook and started selling the items bit by bit, the first day went smashingly and I sold loads of stuff, it petered off after a week or so, buy my gosh I was raising lots of money here! So then I started thinking about what I should be doing with this dosh. I know it would have been easy to keep the money and recoup some party costs, but hang on, turning 30 is special enough, maybe I should be raising this money for charity?
Carole’s tea cups of course went to the charity Carole was raising money for, the link can be found here http://www.justgiving.com/Debra-Parry0 Theresa and I are again doing the race for life this year for Cancer Research, so that was another easy one and we’ve sent some money that way, the link can be found herehttp://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/SammyandTheresa Barney’s was the next choice of charity and he picked The British Heart Foundation. (I don’t have a link for them and have taken the money in to their charity shop as a donation). The last charity we chose was The Rowans Hospice, they are wonderful charity and do some amazing work. Some money went straight over to The Hospice but a colleague from work is doing a charity walk for them, so some has been donated that way as well, their link can be found herehttp://www.justgiving.com/Kelly-Pope2
They are all of course are still accepting donations so any donations welcome!
The grand totals so far are…
Drum roll please……
Cancer Research - £45
British Heart Foundation - £45
Womb Cancer Research - £40
The Rowans Hospice - £40
So that’s it, birthday over, hundreds of pounds spent in charity shops and hundreds of pounds donated. So yes, I did throw a big bash and yes no expense was spared, and yes it did cost more than the third World debt (slight exaggeration) BUT I would like to think that we did a little good for the World, for charities and for these charities in particular close to my heart! I do hope you’re all very proud of your efforts, buying crockery and donating, I know I certainly am very proud of me.
TTFN xx
