Recycle Xmas Cards - YES!

Seen in my local doctor's clinic in Sixways, Cheltenham. Love this. 

Unloved vintage metal reinvented

This Christmas was an interesting one for us as it was our first in Cheltenham where we have finally settled after 20 years in Berlin. Needless to say, I tried to fit in a few festive markets. My first stop was the Cheltenham Christmas market which was disappointing. Well, it would have been wouldn't it? What did I expect after 20 years crunching through the snowy landscapes of fairy-tale German Weihnachtsmärkte, gluhwein in hand, assailed by wafts of cinnamon, toffee apples and waffles? Cheltenham's was literally a damp squib by comparison, not that that could be helped.   

The Cheltenham Connect Christmas Craft Fair on Bath Road was rather more successful.  All those small stallholders wearing silly elves hats and deer antlers selling lovely handmade items chimed better with the Christmas spirit. There was a complete absence of tasteless tinsel and I even found a couple of stalls selling goods made using recycled materials! I have already written about the Christmas hedgehogs. Another stall to catch my eye was being manned by Jim Blenkinsop - above.  

Jim is a self-employed engineer who creates extraordinary works of art with his wife Helen (an artist and bridge teacher). They call their enterprise "Or(e)" and they use unloved vintage metal ware to create contemporary objects with a twist. 

The binoculars below have been converted into candle holders

                                          

In this picture the candlesticks have been tweaked and improved with the addition of the coloured balls. 

                                              

These "birds' claws" were once sugar tongs desperately in need of a new purpose, as no one ever seems to use tongs these days. 

  

                                               

Jim and Helen seek out pre-World War 2 quality metal on ebay and at car boot sales - they describe this metal as their single common denominator. In the picture at the start of this blog article, Jim is standing in his garden next to a bird table that he made from a 19th century scroll saw originally used in New York for cutting veneers to make marketry.   

Below, 1930 vintage secateurs ("really beautiful metal" says Jim) have been reworked by him with Helen's creative input into these birds. The bird legs were once forged steel woodworking bits. 

                                    

and well, you decide what has gone into the next creation!

            

                                           

Jim and Helen welcome commissions and can be contacted on jimblenkinsop@mail.com or 07980447673.  If you have any unloved metal items you would love to be turned into something entirely new and decorative, Jim and Helen are the people to contact. 

Upcycling Christmas Hedgehogs!

                                    

I popped into the offices of the charity +Carers Gloucestershire the other day to find out how they are literally cannibalising landfill fodder to turn into items for sale in their shop. In the picture above they are creating hedgehogs from books. Below, this string of Christmas bunting was created using old socks and jumper sleeves and is now adorning the mirror in my dining room. 

The activity of upcycling unloved items kills two, if not three, birds with one stone. It is perfect for bringing together the people the charity assists to do something fun together. Attractive items are created that can be sold and otherwise useless stuff can be re-invented into something desirable. A Win win situation!

+Carers Gloucestershire exists to enhance the lives of unpaid carers - people looking after sick family members or neighbours. They can find themselves leading isolated, often impecunious lives and the charity advises them on how to maximise their income as well as organising fun events and social interaction. Esther, left in the top picture, is not only a full time carer, she also runs subgroup Hucclecote Carers which is one of 60 of the charity's subgroups.    

The day I called in at their offices, these ladies were busy folding abandoned books into very weird shapes... 

 

....called "hedgehogs"!


The hedgehogs sell for £3.00 and are snapped up at Christmas fairs.  The charity organisers and their helpers are often assisted by office workers from local companies such as insurance company + Ecclesiastical across the road. While I was there Louise from Finance dropped in during her lunch break to help out at the crafting table. The idea is catching on with her colleagues who give up lunch hours to donate time to the cause.



Some have a few skills to offer as is clear from the jewellery they helped make from a broken necklace in a recent session.

The tea and egg cosies below were made with donated wool and the Xmas baubles by imaginative minds using upcycled materials.

Schools have also been involved such as Cheltenham's grammar school +Pates making items in their art lessons.

Do you know of any charity that is being helped out by local companies in this way? Especially in a way that uses existing resources imaginatively - just like +Carers Gloucestershire?

Great tip - where to find cheap recycled materials this Xmas!

The Scrapstore in Gloucester is part of a 30 year old network of 90 such scrap depositories across the UK. It is a brilliantly clever charity that collects unwanted but suitable scrap from industry and puts it up for sale to families,students and groups for creative upcycling.

My trip to the Gloucester  Scrapstore above felt like stumbling in a sugar-deprived state on a candy-bejewelled gingerbread house! For a mere £6-12 you can load a shopping trolley with leftover industrial stuff, unloved discarded fabric and all manner of excess-to-requirements plastic thingies gifted by the county's businesses. For a short taste of what I mean see the video below.

The pity of it - to my entrepreneurial mind - is that it is not open to small craftspeople busy trying to scratch a living from making and selling beautiful objects from recycled materials. Well, yes, you can take out

A Hand-Made Christmas Sales Success Story

This is a story about a Scottish craftswoman, +Eunice Wilson, who is having a runaway success with her hand-made Christmas gifts made from upcycled leather. Think product, timing and luck….because the idea of hanging books around your neck, off your ears or on your wrists doesn’t immediately seem such a clever one. Unless that is, the books are miniscule and exquisite. Product, tick. 

Handmade Books Pendant £18-23

                                                                            
Eunice Wilson, a book freak if ever there was one, hit on the notion of making tiny books out of recycled material into jewellery and cufflinks and they are proving hugely popular in the run up to Christmas. Timing, tick.

Eunice’s big break came when

A handmade gift for a royal baby?

Handmade shoes using recycled materials "Emily" £89

I think I cooed like a wood pigeon when I first picked up these handmade baby and toddler shoes. The quality is superb, they are unbelievably soft and there's an underlying feel of permanency to them.
These shoes would last for generations. Neatly packed away in their luxury handmade cushioned boxes, they are the stuff of family heirlooms. Vevian is the place to go, I reckon, if you want a present for the next royal baby. Listening Pippa?

They are designed and handmade by Vivienne Lopez (see below, at her work bench).

When I discovered from Barbara Pani, who runs anecdotes design in Folkestone's cultural quarter (yes, it does have one) that the shoes are partly made using discarded materials, I was hot in persuit of the story. 

Vivienne later explained to me how she uses recycled materials in her handmade baby shoes.  She is fortunate in being allowed to take away the so-called spaghetti pieces left over after the soles for women's shoes have been cut out of leather sole boards by Gina Shoes. Full marks to them. Vivienne then spends hours grouping the pieces by colour because leather being a natural product, no two pieces are ever exactly the same. That done, she works her magic cutting, hand sanding, polishing and buffing.

   

"Emily" in the presentation shoe box made with recycled cardboard

The recycling of materials does not end there. And this is what I find so utterly charming about Vevian. Yes, owner Vivienne could buy in the cardboard needed to create the cushions inside the beautiful handmade shoeboxes. But instead she corrals her nearest and dearest to collect cereal boxes, packaging etc which she then cuts on a press machine to the correct size. The shoeboxes are gorgeous in their own right and are the perfect presentation packaging. 

It is no surprise that these heavenly shoes have featured in Vogue and at the relaunch of the children's shoe department at John Lewis' Oxford Street flagship store.

Vivienne is a mother of two small children; she launched the brand in 2008 and runs it with the support of her husband and extended family. The shoes are not cheap costing between £89-£95 pounds a pair, but, honestly, what price heaven for baby feet? And especially when recycled materials have been so inventively used in the process.

From top left clockwise, Matthew £95, Emily £89, assorted shoe boxes and Jessica £95  

http://www.vevian.com

A Great British Wrap-up

Artist Karen Green's "The Painter's Pantry" produces a smorgasbord of deliciously innovative items out of recycled materials for artists.  She paints too and I couldn't resist reproducing her portrait of the swaddled Peruvian baby above. The theme of swaddling, or wrapping, is key to much of what Karen otherwise makes - flawlessly sewn material wraps for storing artists' tools using upcycled fabric.

"I just find great satisfaction in being able to make someone’s ‘rubbish’ into beautiful items to be loved again." Karen Green  

It is with other peoples' "rubbish" that Karen creates a larder of goodies for artists which includes wraps for brushes, pencils or pins and needles collections. She also packs away buttons into spice bottles, creates sewing boxes out of spice racks and hand stitches sketch books.

Pencil Wrap £10-12

Paintbrushes Wrap £12-15

       

Pins and Needles Wrap £5-6

Karen is a trained primary school teacher, artist and screen and stage costume designer with a very thrifty streak! She literally haunts charity shops for swatches of lovely cloth that she can use to create the wraps and is a big supporter of buying local. Upcycling just comes naturally because she has always reached for the nearest leftovers to make her creations.

Networking for Craftspeople

Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Since I began writing this blog I have been struck by how many craftspeople are failing to put themselves out there!

It pains me to see artists and makers of handmade goods red nosed and shivering as the fickle public idle past their stands barely bothering to make eye contact. Going to markets or selling your goods through the odd shop or two isn't enough to promote a craft business; all sorts of strategic strings have to be added to your bow and networking is one of them.

Networking is vital for lots of reasons, not least for bringing you into contact with people who can inform, inspire, enthuse and chew the cud with you.  You'll meet other professionals in different fields, people you can discuss your problems with informally and who may provide new sources of business at the same time.

Imagine this - chatting over breakfast coffee and croissants to a high street shop manager who might be quite interested to allow you a small corner of his shop front to help pull in customers....or to a small business owner who might commission you to make something beautiful and handmade as incentive give-aways for customers. Networking events mean meeting potential clients. They are not just about boozy fat men in grey suits showing off about their car dealerships and carpet cleaning franchises (not there's anything wrong with those...). They are fun to attend and present business opportunities you might never have dreamt of.

If you are not already networking outside your group of artist and crafts contacts then you should be.
Simply google "networking events" for your area and a vast plethora will appear. The Federation of Small Businesses and your local Chamber of Commerce are quite expensive to join (around £150 and £80 annually in my area) but they provide an array of fantastic help to small businesses for example in the form of legal protection costs, debit and credit card payment discounted transaction fees, a free business banking service with the FSB, discounted roadside assistance and free training...to mention just a few.

There are lots of other kinds of local networking groups and women's ones too and they are much cheaper to join than the Chamber of Commerce or FSB but without the same incentives to join. They put on worthwhile training events though and provide good opportunities to meet other people.

So take my advice, brighten up your (sometimes) lonely, hardworking day and do a spot of networking. And if you are doing so already, tell me about your favourite networking group and how it has worked for you.

Alex Piros - Recycled Paper Secrets

I am delighted to be back after weeks of camping in our new home amidst shoals of unpacked boxes and splinter-prone bare floorboards.   A highlight of my blog-off time was meeting Alex Piros (above) of "BeGoodStayGood" who produces hand-bound notebooks and pretty paper goods. Loveitback met up with her on a hot and humid London afternoon in St Pancras station hence the setting for most of the pictures!

Alex has a stunning smile and while in fact she is German, she speaks a flawless American accented English. One of the reasons I was happy to include Alex on this blog is that while her goods are not made 100% from recycled materials she is making determined strides in that direction, and is setting a great example. Her personal ethos is to tread as lightly as possible to reflect her vegan principles. 

There's a sort of deceptive simplicity to Alex's products that is rather beguiling.  The Flutter Book in the main picture above is made from folding and cutting an A3 size piece of paper; the end result could be used for a photo album, love messages or as a notebook. I loved the idea that  it could be re-formed into an A3 poster and that when you stretch it out, it flutters like a butterfly. It retails for a mere £4.00.

Secret Pocket Book

Another that grabbed my imagination was the Secret Pocket Book (£15.00) with a hidden binding and ingenious folding flap for holding/hiding anything you might want! It was a bit dark in the cafe so I have flooded the picture with light to reveal the folding flap.

The Joys of House Moving

Loveitback blog  is going on temporary hold while we move from Kent to Gloucestershire and will reappear when ......power and water are finally switched on in our new house; when an internet connection is sorted and when the headache-inducing wood varnishing fumes have evaporated.  

These pix show where we are "at" in June and why I am not holding my breath for a speedy resumption of the blog.

Dining Room

One side of the garden room (other side looks the same)

How to balance creative work with joyless admin

 

Jessica Hall's company Bluebird Designs does a great line in enamel jewellery using recycled silver.  I remember how vibrant and delectable her designs were when I visited her stall at the Renegade Craft Fair late last year in London. She had come a long way for that - because home and studio is in Incline Village, Nevada! 

Before she opened Bluebird Designs she took courses in jewellery-making in North Seattle, Hawaii and San Francisco. Her "original bird" was made at a weekend enamel workshop in Hawaii - and from then on she was hooked.

Jessica has always been conscious of recycling and buys her recycled silver from Hoover and Strong.

How does a woman working alone manage to balance the time-consuming demands of both the creative work and the joyless admin? Jessica says she's learnt to pay heed to the moments when the creative juices are flowing freely. But it's clear the business side weighs heavily.

 "I'd have to say it's a constant juggle ....there are days I just want to sit and cry and pull out my hair in frustration and exhaustion....but I realize how lucky I am to have found such a passion in life and have it be my career as well".

It is a source of admiration to me the way Jessica, and so many of her colleagues in the business, run their businesses single-handedly, battling with the bureaucracy and yet still turning out imaginative works of art.

Jessica has promised herself a sketchbook for her nightstand (bedside table for we Brits) so that the ideas that seem so often to come to her in her dreams can be quickly jotted down. Jessica's friends - please note!

Although Bluebird Designs produces a variety of enamelled animals, Jessica's best seller is  her "Signature" bird.
  

She's experimenting with various avenues for sales purposes but has an Etsy shop, her own portfolio website, sells through some retail outlets and makes a point of appearing at markets and fairs.

 You can sign up to Jessica's newsletter at the bottom of her home page right here http://www.bluebirddesigns.com/

Birds of a sustainable feather...

                         

Clare Shields is fast making a name for herself and the products she makes which depict what she calls her "friendly little creatures". Clare's hand drawn signature style is perfect for the gift market of greetings cards, gift tags, tea towels, prints and mugs.  The name of her company, Lil3birdy, might suggest that it's all about birds but as you'll see below, sausage dogs and cheeky squirrels also get a look in.

Squirrels Drinking Art Print £29.00

Selection of Gift Tags

I was first alerted to Clare's work through its sheer artistry but was really impressed when I realised she insists on the highest ethical standards in the production process.

Her paper stationery is made from chlorine-free product and sourced from sustainable forests. She also works hard to ensure the same standards are adhered to by the companies involved in the production runs. 

Clare's fashion marketing background has helped her understand how the marketing and PR behind a product is essential to sales. She's selling through a good online agency (Notonthehighstreet.com) and was included in a Mary Portas concession in the House of Fraser on Oxford Street.

Lil3Birdy Mary Portas concession

Clare has a realistic pricing policy aimed at making her work affordable. She says she always considers what her competition is charging and has been forced not to proceed with some products because of the steep set up costs.

She says her Not On The High Street shop brings her “bread and butter” sales and that the best selling product at the moment is the squirrel drinking tea greeting card.

Clockwise from top left, Colourful Eccentric Birds Tea Towel; Cute Birds Postcard Set; Quirkquirk Coasters Set; Dog and Bird Mug.

Hot Stuff for Father's Day presents

Look carefully at what Tony Watts (of Square Pear Furniture) is holding in his hands. Do you remember those heart shaped sweet/candies we used to love as kids? They were slightly fizzy and had silly messages stamped on them like "real love" and "kiss". Tony Watts' award winning Hot Stuff Trivets made from locally sourced timber just have to be inspired by the original ... Here's a closer look:

Wood Trivet £30-£45

SquarePear furniture offers an expanding range of quality furniture and homewares, each piece designed with a quirky childlike feel and made with care and expertise.

I am featuring Tony on this blog because he uses timber sourced from his local timber yard (which keeps his carbon foot print to the absolute minimum) and because his trivets are a delightful reminder of childhood deliciousness.

Tony manufactures his goods entirely himself, has a multi award winning joinery background and has also studied architectural conservation.

He says of his work:

 "I approach every product with the idea of making something I have never seen before....breaking boundaries I guess."  

Maybe that's the reason why I fell for his Chunky Jigsaw Coasters and Trivet. They're clever, innovative, lovely to use and I, er, just want them.

Chunky Jigsaw Coasters and Trivet £25.45

Tony sells his inspired products through Notonthehighstreet.com and it's well worth checking through the range if you're looking for something handmade from locally sourced materials with a touch of masculine appeal. Such as these:

 

Nice Biscuit Board Platter £35.00

Compact Cassette Door Wedge £14.95