Washed Up Cards

Last week my 17 year old cousin joined me for a weeks work experience with Washed Up Cards. When my auntie first asked me I honestly thought what on earth is he going to learn with me but I’m so glad I managed to (mostly) contain these negative thoughts and said yes! It might not have been a typical ‘work experience’ placement but he definitely got a taste of start up life with Washed Up Cards. Which most of the time feels like I’m running round like a mad woman trying to somehow grow two businesses rolled into one (the greeting cards and then the events). 🌎 He joined me on two #plasticfreejuly beach clean ups I was running with companies Meta and OSTTRA 📚 Came to the book launch of a wonderful Mudlarker Lara Maiklem FSA and had his first taste of networking (he smashed it and was a top wingman!) 📦 Totally sorted out my stock room, a job I’ve been putting on since end of last year. ♻️ Took some fab photos on the beach clean ups and helped me plan some social media posts 🧽 Washed a load of plastic we collected on the beach cleans ready to for my cards and creative workshops (not sure he loved this part 😂) 💌 Helped me package up orders and visited a few of my local stockists to drop off cards. 🛍️ Joined me filling up some of my staples at my local refill shop BYO, he’d never been to a plastic free store before and think it was a real eye opening experience for him! 💦 As well as going to one of my favourite places to unwind after work Brockwell Lido 💦 All this might not have been ‘conventional learning’ but he told me absolutely loved it which made me so happy and pleased I didn’t say no to his auntie (like I so nearly did). I’m trying to be more honest on here and I constantly have these horrid niggles of ‘I’m not good enough to grow this business blah blah blah’ and was also genuinely a little embarrassed to show someone all the behind the scenes running it but this is all rubbish and need to know I’m doing a lot here and slowly slowly growing this into a really impactful social enterprise helping bring people together to help fight plastic pollution and feeling great doing so! Love to know if other people ever feel similar things and your tips for getting over yourself 🙏🏼 #startups #sustainabilty #workexperience #femalefounder #impostersyndrome

‘Cards that free the river’ ITV Woo (planetwoo.co) I’m pretty dyslexic and not the best writer in the world when it comes to copy / comms but I always remember a talk by Katie Packer during my Hatch Enterprise UK course saying it’s a good idea to read what other people write about us / our businesses and take the good bits to use in certain relevant comms. Does anyone else do this? Thanks to Darshita Goyal for featuring Washed Up Cards and the lovely words ❤️ https://lnkd.in/eK886zXS

#WorldBookDay This was one of the earliest Washed Up Cards I made with plastic collected from the River Thames. I made it for my mum who adores reading and definitely shaped my love of books too despite being dyslexic. My silly ego nearly made me not post this picture as it’s so smudged and looks ever so basic compared to the greeting cards I make now but I got over myself and decided to share! Does anyone else get like that when they look back at old work /writing and think wow at the time I thought this was amazing and now I’m like errrrrr 🤔 Anyway it for sure shows progress I’ve made which is a nice feeling 🙂 #ThrowbackThursday #progress #lookingback

I don’t often go personal on here but it’s been a challenging time recently with some tragic news about a wonderful family friend. My rock of a sister had an idea for Washed Up Cards to link up with a charity like Mind and make a card to support and raise awareness about mental health. Does anyone know anyone who works there? Or any other contacts / connections at mental health charities who might be interested? #mentalhealth #raiseawareness

Before and AFTER a fab gang from Ikano Insight joined me for a beach clean on the River Thames last week ♻️ 🔹💛🔹 We picked up 25 large bin bags of rubbish in an hour - that’s approx 140kg of rubbish removed from the River Thames. 🔹💛🔹 Thank you so much to all the Ikano team for your amazing hard work and to my friend Christian Stilwell for making it happen! This week is Mental Health Awarnesss week and the theme for 2024 is movement - Who’s keen to get moving and orgnaise the next one? #beachcleanup #riverthames #london #cleanup #plasticpellets #beachclean #rubbish #litter #mentalhealthawareness

Busy couple of weeks with lots of events in the run up to #EarthDay. Loved the workshop this morning at FactSet - if you like the sound of a splash of creativity in the office please do get in touch Washed Up Cards :) “Thank you to Flora for her incredibly engaging approach to recycling that promoted sustainability and fostered creativity in our office. The process of transforming waste into colourful, distinctive art and greeting cards was both inspiring and enjoyable for everyone who attended the workshop.” FactSet London, Pledge for the Planet, 2024