A MARYPORT woman who was heartbroken by the devastation caused by bushfires in Australia wanted to do her bit to help - and was blown away by the fantastic response.

Lisa Harrison, who owns Handmade By You, on Curzon Street, loves Australia and is on her fourth visit there.

When she heard about the horrific bushfires and all the animals killed or injured, she was keen to help.

She offered to make felt koala brooches in return for a donation to an Australian zoo and organised a workshop at which people could make pouches for injured animals.

"I have been overwhelmed with the response. I initially thought I would be making 10 koalas but the night I posted it online, it just went wild and then I started working 12 hour days to get through them all," said Lisa, who has now rustled up more than 350 brooches with more on order.

"All of them have been embroidered using my machine with the help of Mum putting on brooch backs and my husband, Ian, cutting the felt to keep my production line moving."

The brooches have raise £1,500 which Lisa and Ian presented to Taronga Zoo this week.

"With the pouches, we had a craft day in the shop to distribute the patterns and give people more information and then it seemed to spread from there.

"I had people calling into the shop who didn’t come on the day but had heard we were helping and dropped pouches in, some sent them directly to the shop and we ended up with around 50 to deliver to the zoo," she said.

Lisa was delighted with the support from The Crafty Workshop in Workington.

The couple are spending three weeks in Australia.

"It has been an eye opening experience in the zoo to hear the stories about the injured animals," said Lisa.

"The pouches we took will help the smaller animals. The hospital uses a lot and they were very grateful of more at the moment.

"The money is helping towards rescues and particularly at the moment, food."