We’ve mentioned here before that we like the idea of auctioning off some of our dresses for various charities. After hemming and hawing and trying to figure out how to make everything run perfectly smooth, I realized that’s probably not going to happen. No amount of planning is going to give us the experience, so it’s time to jump in with both feet and see what happens.
Last week you may have caught us on The Doctors TV show chatting about food allergies. If not, you can check out our segment here. Many of you already know that Mayhem’s allergies are fairly extensive and possibly life threatening. Basically, they’re a big deal to us. And lots of other families live with the challenges as well. So with this week being Food Allergy Awareness Week, we’ve decided to kick off our dress auctions with one benefiting FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education). It’s my personal go to site whenever a new question comes up about Mayhem’s allergies and always the first site I direct others to when they ask about food allergies.
And with teal being the color for food allergy awareness, I knew EXACTLY which dress to auction off. I’ve never actually posted a photograph of it to my Instagram account. Not in color anyway 😉 It’s one of the dresses we created specifically for our Cincinnati Magazine photo shoot and a personal favorite.
I love this one. Really REALLY love this one. And it holds some very special memories for us too.
My husband thinks I need to make a few details clear: This dress is made from tissue paper and clear packing tape. I repeat: THIS DRESS IS MADE FROM TISSUE PAPER AND CLEAR PACKING TAPE. What he actually meant though, was that I should make it clear that this isn’t designed to be a “dress up” dress. We had to carefully cut the back of the dress after the photo shoot to get Mayhem out of it and then we taped it back together for display purposes.
We’re auctioning it as art or memorabilia. In other words, if you try to put this on another kid, it’s probably going to rip or tear. Also, the pipe cleaner necklace you see her wearing in the above photograph is not included. That thing was long gone months ago. Just FYI 😉
Here’s how it’s going to work (this time anyway …. read also: learning curve happening here): We’ve set up an auction using Ebay Giving Works program. It’s a super cool way to sell/auction off your items and donate a percentage to a charity of your choice.
We’re donating 100% of the sale price of the item to FARE. We’re also not charging for shipping. Which is why I’m limiting it to US shipping this time around. If we get someone who wants to step up and cover international shipping charges for us, we’ll open that up next time around. But since we’re personally covering shipping charges, I’m sticking with domestic only this time. IF you happen to work for USPS, FedEx or UPS and would like to donate shipping, drop me a line, we’d love to chat 😉
So let’s get this giving party started! If you want to check out and bid on the dress, you can do so RIGHT HERE.
The auction will be live for five days. And I’m excited to have FARE be the beneficiaries of our first charity auction. Those peeps are doing awesome work and families like mine are eternally grateful for the research and education they provide!
Awesome!!! That is such a cool thing to do! I love the dress, and love the cause!
You are doing something amazing that fills my heart with happy! I’m so excited to see this. THANK YOU Angie!
i loved your segment on the doctors and what you are doing here. I would love to own a Mayhem original but had to opt to make a donation instead for the little girl and her mom that make me smile each day. Keep doing what you are doing and thank you for sharing with us.
I saw an article about your daughter paper dresses long ago. So awesome! My son has food allergies to nuts, milk, eggs, sesame, and eggs. This is really great what you guys are doing! I’m so happy that you guys are using your platform to speak up for kids with food allergies. Thank you so much!
I’ve just randomly ran across your IG feed this morning — I regularly only share my own photos but was so inspired by Mayhem’s paper creations, I wrote a post and share a few photos from your feed with a link back to your IG account. The paper creating is just unbelievably amazing and your photos of her is so perfect, too! I love that you’re sharing and giving back through this project you’re obviously enjoying together and sent huge thanks for sharing!! I’m a few fan and follower — looking forward to seeing more 4 year old fashion inspiration!
What a talented and creative little girl you have! I saw posts on Facebook about her creations, but didn’t realize she had food allergies until today. My son also has multiple food allergies. Thank you for what you are doing to support an amazing organization! I’m going to post a link to this post on my blog.
Keep up the great fashion work!
So does Mayhem “study” models because I love her poses! She really seems to know what she’s doing and takes pride in it.