Help a struggling Artist earn for her family.

This is really difficult for myself and my husband to do, it feels embarrassing but my friends have told me to stop letting my pride get in the way so I have considered a way of making this a little easier to ask.

As many of you may know we have had a difficult couple of years as a family which has taken a huge toll on our whole families physical and mental health.

I want to share with you a little of what’s been happening for transparencies sake but I don’t want to divulge too much into my children’s personal issues for their own privacy purposes, I am sure you understand why.

2 years ago on the 11th November 2021 my husband was involved in a serious work accident, this left him with 7 fractured ribs, a small pneumothorax ,a cracked lower vertebrae and a serious Lisfranc crushing injury to his foot.

As you can imagine this was a very painful accident and left my husband completely unable to work for 18 months. This impacted us massively as a family financially and otherwise.

We have fought extremely hard to deal with all of this on our own because as I say, we are proud.

Sadly this has led to some pretty serious mental health issues for myself which led me to be signed off work for a period of 6 months but I was unable to afford to take this time as my family was very much dependant on my income, although I don’t earn a massive amount it counted.

During all of this we encountered quite a few other stressors that caused further financial struggles, including a period of me being unable to work due to caring for my son post heart surgery (obviously my priority) and a lot of travel and food cost during our time staying near the hospital.

I depend desperately on my small Art business and the other night I dropped and smashed my laptop, after losing many art materials being damaged by damp due to having to move house because of being essentially pushed to do so.

This however has turned out to be a good decision for us but we are still currently very much on back foot despite my husband being back at work.

There is a lot more I could say but I do want to keep some of it close to my chest because it is quite hard to talk about.

I am attempting to raise funds for a new laptop so I can at least fulfil my existing orders and don’t have to start a refund process to existing orders. I need to be strong and keep working and trying to keep us a float so I need a little help and as my friends keep telling me there is no shame in reaching out.

I would tell my friends the same but it’s always harder to ask when it’s you isn’t it? I also want you to know that I will never ask unless it’s something that is impacting the ones I love the most and I struggle to see a way out.

So my idea is this…

Anyone who donates will receive something from me Art wise over the next year when things begin to improve, so in this sense it is more of a “payment in advance”.

I also want to stress here that I do not want anyone to donate if they are unable to do so, we do not wish to leave anyone else short in any way because we have learnt a very hard lesson as to how important it actually is to have some financial stability.

Regardless as to whether you are able or wish to donate anything I love you all for your words of comfort, love and support of me and my family during what’s been the most challenging few years of our lives ❤️.