The Posh Poppy story

Who would have thought when I raided my stash of red fabric and black buttons to make a small batch of 'Posh Poppies' that a crazy charity campaign would be born?

This first batch was sold via my facebook page and Twitter and the remaining few were taken to the Vintage Victory Fair in Shenfield.

No sooner had I sold this batch then the messages started flowing in and all and sundry wanted to get their hands on a Posh Poppy. Through a combination of craft fairs, twitter, facebook, my website and the lovely shop owners in Crown Street Brentwood (Special thanks goes to Alison of Racquet Boutique for having a basket of Posh Poppies on her counter)
all in all I sold a whopping.......

238


Then comes the fame! My Posh Poppies were featured on the Mollie Makes blog


The Mayor of Brentwood Councillor Joan Holmes requested I visited her so that she could purchase a Posh Poppy personally!

Not only that but she wore it to Launch the official Royal British Legion
poppy appeal in Brentwood.


And then tweeted about it!

Then Kirstie Allsop featured me on her facebook page! This saw loads of e-mails coming in asking to buy more poppies, sadly by which time production had ceased.

My Posh Poppies were even worn by Brentwoods latest celebrity. Peri Sinclair, owner of fabulous card shop Bizarra on Crown Street and star of hit TV show 'TOWIE'

So here are the financial facts. You will remember I had agreed to give all the profits (£1.50 per poppy) to the Royal British Legion. £1 would purchase a paper poppy so that the veterans who make them still earned a living from their production and the additional 50p would be an additional donation. You can read the story behind this financial decision HERE.

The paper poppies I purchased would be used to make a wreath which I would lay on the war memorial for all to see.

I have to admit to only buying 110 paper poppies, after a while of buying 10 here 20 there and another 5 here so as to not deplete anyones boxes, I decided to put the rest of the money in a veterans pot and simply take 6 larger fabric poppies to finish off my wreath.

I think the gentleman in question was a tad gobsmacked when I stuffed over one hundred pounds worth of notes in his pot! I gathered it went to the same place whether I took a paper poppy or not!

So all in all I raised £357.

£238 went on paper poppies (or in the pot at least) and £119 was donated online to the Royal British Legion.

I think I can say that the campaign was a wonderful success. I think I could have sold this amount of poppies 10 times over. Needless to say I will be making more for next year, but will be starting the process in the summer! Posh Poppies will be available on my website from the 1st October 2012.

Thank you to everyone who purchased a poppy or spread the word via their social networks.