Good afternoon all followers of the HoHoHoliday FundRAiser!
Apologies for my lack of communication here on blog over the last days. No, I did not do a runner with the money, I was just resting after a full three-day packing marathon Thursday, Friday, Saturday. This morning I took the last of my shipments to the post office. You should have received your dispatch notifications by now (check your spam folder and/or your Etsy and eBay accounts if you haven’t seen it yet). That is apart from 9 shipments that will be sent by the donor directly tomorrow or Wednesday. However, it is all accounted for and all good. If you received notification that an item was bought by you, then it is yours and will be shipped to you. Guaranteed!
It’s been a mad few days. To give you an insight, why it takes so long to stick a little brooch in an envelope and ship it off to the buyer:
In total, I processed 184 transactions. 40 were on eBay, 144 on Etsy. 50 of them were fulfilled by the donors themselves, i.e. the donors of the items packed and shipped the items themselves. Of the remaining 130+ transactions, many were transactions where a buyer had bought more than one item, so all their items had to be picked and packed together for one shipment. Every purchase on both platforms had to be printed out. Since many of you bought items individually rather than multiple in one transaction, those packing slips had to be first sorted together. I did that in alphabetical order, so I would catch each and every item each buyer had bought. It’s amazing how long that takes… Unfortunately the Etsy order system does not provide an alphabetical filter option when printing those packing slips. This is not meant as a scolding for clicking on “buy” individually rather than in one transaction – I understand that the system forces you to do so in order to snap up the items that you coveted.
Even though I had an assembly line in progress – all items lined up and in reach so that I could put them together and place them in the shipping container – I first had to find suitable packaging material, envelopes and boxes to carefully pack them in. Then the next step was addressing each shipment. For UK and US shipments, customs forms have to be filled in, which require manual input of each address, item details, value and customs code. Then the shipping labels, already with postage, had to be printed out and attached to the envelopes/boxes, and the shipment had to be sealed and secured. It takes a while to get it all ready for dispatch… And with our fantastic range of so many items, it is impossible to prepare shipments in advance and have ready-packed envelopes that would only need slapping on an address label, as there is no knowing what people are going to buy and in which combination.
Half way through packing and labelling, this is what my craft-room looked like.
It had even looked worse than that. But by Sunday morning everything was packed, labelled and the last batch was ready for posting.
Doesn’t even look like it, but the craft room is back in a tidy state.
I took five trips to the post office, the first of which I didn’t document. But those are basically five large Ikea bag loads’ worth of shipments 😂
Before you think I am complaining: It was all worth it. Because we really generated a shed-load of money. Since I am not quite sure whether we might have some more postal deductions, I can only give you a hint right now, but I think it is fairly certain that we have cracked a really nice big watershed. But we have considerable deductions due to postage costs. The postage alone currently stands at €699.45, and the fees subtracted another €406.84 from the net profits.
However, the fees and postage should not detract from the amazing result of the fundraiser. My thanks go to all bidders and buyers and to the donors. The latter have donated money to the tune of €455.14! Thank you so much for that! The donation button is still active, in case anyone would like to contribute still via this link (click the image below):
The final proceeds will be announced tomorrow or Wednesday, as soon as postage deductions are finalised!
Guylty Pleasure 
Thank you for all your hard work! We appreciate it! Well, I appreciate it! I can’t wait for my Sir Guy Wolf Broach to get here! I’m going to wrap it and put it under my tree and then surprise myself Christmas morning lol!
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Nice one! A gift to yourself – that is great. Hehe, if you can wait that long 😉
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Chances are good I’ll take it out and put it on before I put it back and wrap it@!
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Fair enough.
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We all know how good we are at deluding ourselves about That Special Man…why not extend the behavior to self-purchased Xmas presents, ha ha ha, I love this plan!!!
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Thank you for all your hard work. I love those little items and all for a good cause!
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It is so cool to see all the things we can come up with – both in terms of conventional fan items (DVDs, books, memorabilia) and handmade, unique stuff.
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UFF!!!
Bei 130 weißte, was du getan hast … Sortieren und verpacken ist SOOO zeitraubend!
Super, dass du das immer wieder machst. 🙂
PS: Bei dem Anstecker – der Guy-Jackenverschluss – hab ich ja selber mit dem Gedanken an Kauf gespielt. Einfach cool. das Teil, und dann halt noch der Nur-Eingeweihte-wissen-was-das-wirklich-ist-Faktor als Extra dazu … Ach ja. 😉
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Ja, das ist das Coole an solchen Fan-Teilen: Man kann sie tragen, ohne ständig im Erklärungszwang zu stehen. Ich liebe solche Sachen – man erfreut sich an ihnen, ohne blöde Fragen zu bekommen.
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You certainly deserve a rest! What an amazing achievement. Can’t wait to hear the final total 😊
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Just reading that description of tasks exhausted me to the point where I thought…it’s time to help out a bit here (duh). Look for a contribution toward shipping costs via Paypal, G.
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Many thanks, Besotted, arrived and noted!
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Thank you for all your hard work, it is always appreciated. I’m looking forward to my magnet!
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Hopefully arriving next week!
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What a mammoth operation Guylty! Huge thanks, you really are a marvel. If you ever contemplate another auction (!!!) I wonder if there is a way of helping you to ease the burden.
Enjoy the breather.
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There is a solution, and I would have employed it this year, but the pandemic prevents us. Maybe next year I will ask for a volunteer to come and visit to help with the shipments. Pay your own travel, but bed and board on me 😄.
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This is exactly what I was thinking as well: Guylty needs her own packaging elves!
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If it wasn’t for this pandemic, I’d have sent out a call for elves 🧝🏻♀️
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I would be more than happy to be an elf!
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Noted 😉
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Put me on the waitlist for elves…
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Hehe, noted.
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Yesssss, I’ve always wanted to see Dublin, count me in!!!
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LOL, with all these offers coming in, I will actually create an assembly line, let you all do the word, and sit behind you in an armchair, legs propped up on a pouf, G&T in one hand, cracking the whip with the other.
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I’ve said it elsewhere before but yet again kudos to you for all you do and thank you, thank you, thank you for all your hard work!
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All good. Happy to do it all. 😊
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Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the wee donkey! Thank you for pushing through this, what a task. I’m thinking even saving and donating packing that can be recycled would help axx
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