Chicken Hats & Christmas Tree Skirts

Did I happen to mention that I crocheted some items for the company-wide auction to benefit United Way?
Well, I did.

I donated two chicken hats, a pair of adorable fluffy pink hats, and a Christmas tree skirt.

Let me tell you about the chicken hats. 
They were the brain child of a co-worker several months ago.  She wanted to sell something interesting from her family booth at a "Fur and Feather" Swap Meet.  At the time, I was crocheting chemo hats left and right for Lily and just about every other person on Earth who has cancer.  This co-worker, very aware of my obsession, thought it'd be a good diversion if I made something less depressing and suggested I put a rooster comb on a hat.  Or a pair of chicken legs.  Or a beak.
So, I tried it.  Just to see if I could.
The legs were hideous and scary-looking.  The beak... hopeless.
But after a couple tries, the rooster comb was perfect and made everyone who saw it giggle.

I made six hats for her swap meet.
She sold them all and gave me $7 a piece for them.

In the meantime, she had been modeling the chicken hats at work to amuse the news department when one of the promotions people from the newspaper division happened to walk in.  This promotions person was in the midst of developing a public event featuring a sold-out cooking show.  This promotions person thought that chicken hats on the heads of sponsors during the cooking show (where they'd be demonstrating a chicken-based recipe) would be a hoot.  So, she hired me to make six more hats.
She gave me $10 a piece for them.

You see, then, why I thought the rooster hats would be a fairly good attention-getter at a company auction.
And they were.
In fact, two gentlemen in the executive wing were eyeballing those hats for the entire week of the silent auction.  Each time their bids were topped, they'd up it.
By Friday, the rooster hats sold for $15 and $20.  Hooray for United Way!

But, neither of the executives had the winning bids.
"Say, Roses.  Any chance you could make one of those rooster hats for me?  I'd pay you for it."
Why, yes, I can.

Bing.  Boom.
Two more hats.

***

The two pink hats (which I had intended to be auctioned off as a pair) were sold off individually for $7 each.  Not bad.  I had bought the yarn at the local hospital's charity second-hand store for $4. 
So, money for charity two times over.
Yay, me!

***

The Christmas tree skirt took me months to create.  It was big and luscious.
It was the gift I wanted to give to the United Way fund-raising effort.
If I had sold it on etsy.com, I'd have put a $50 price tag on it.
And I was giving it away.
For charity.

The opening bid at work was $5.
Very sad.
But, that was only the first day, right?
Uh...

Three days later, the only other bid was $7.50.
$7.50?
Come on, you guys.  The yarn cost more than that.

If I had donated the tree skirt to United Way itself, they'd have played up that I'm kinda a local celebrity and someone would have paid $50 just to say they got something "Roses from the radio station" made.
No such luck when your own co-workers are bidding, however.

On the last day, the highest bid was $12.
And I'm the one who bid it.
There was no way I was about to let someone walk off with a $50 prize for seven lousy bucks.

I won.
That's right.
I paid $12 to get my own tree skirt back.

Yay. United Way.
Meh.