love train

Saturday was spent mashing about in Deptford, a poke about at the market, lunch at a creative re-use of an abandoned site, The Deptford Project, finished off perusing the creative wonders of Cockpit Arts open studios. Muchly my kinda day.
The Deptford Project is a piece of dis-used land, turned into a market (just next door to the regular market) with mix of furniture, vintage fashion, food, and arts and crafts stalls by local designers, and, a definite contender for the top 10 coolest cafes in the world, is the cafe housed in an ex-railway carriage.
























Cockpit Arts



Along the road from Cockpit there are various other studios, a gallery, a creek and a nice vibe. I like Deptford a lot, it has genuinely cool, exciting creative goings-on, alongside the very normal, cheap and cheerful. I feel much more at home than in the well-known somewhat forced, too-cool trendy arty quarters of London. (Not naming any names, haha)








In the Cockpit Arts pop-up cafe.

linked

All the talk about paper fortune-tellers reminded me of something I had been meaning to post aaages ago. A while back I got a commission to make some cufflinks, in the same vein as my jewellery/clothes/accessories, meaning in some way recycled, re-purposed and re-constructed. And these were the results...

The insides/cogs of old watches, and some military pins found at a car boot.



Where's Wally fortune-tellers, and of course, Lego.


School sports badges, found at a car boot.


I was really excited to do this project as it means I've finally got an item for the guys! Lots of people ask me if I do stuff for guys, or why don't I, and it's just simply because....Well guys aren't so much into wearing/buying accessories, and I guess, being a girl, ideas for females just occur to me more often! But actually, after making these, I feel like ripping off the buttons and adding an extra hole on a couple of my shirts, so I can wear some too. Especially the watch ones, as some may know, for no particular reason, I am ever so fond of everything watch related.

lately

Here's what I've bee upto lately...Scouring charity shops for 70s bedsheets and duvets which would perhaps be a bit too chaotic for a restful sleep, but perfect for recycling into bags and skirts...All these will be going on sale at the Cancer Research shop in Marylebone High Street, as part of reVamp





For these two bags I made the handles by shaping a piece of wire, adding beads, and finishing each end with a button.


For this one I used a bangle for the handle...I really like this idea because I always see lots of cool bangles in charity shops but I can't really justify buying them because I have hundreds and hundreds already...but now I will have a legitimate reason!

I really love the chunky floral print of the dark brown one, there's was some material left over, so I started making a dress for myself, but either I'm being stupid or the sewing pattern is missing some steps! It doesn't seem to be coming out right...and there isn't enough left to start over so I'll have to make some adjustments and try and use some of my sense to make it fit...

Oh and thanks so much to Estrella for the "100" award, I will get around to passing it on soon :D

sonic recycler

Coming up...a night of reinvented sounds, recycled music, films, installations...
Yours truly will have my stall there selling my recycled wares..
And there's gona be a guy turning cds into vinyl! I don't know how exactly, but for sure I'm gona take along some cds and find out!

* Oh, and thanks so much for all the so nice comments about the things I've been making, it's so lovely to hear that...Especially the tie-belts, I'm very proud of my little invention hehe... *

reVamp launch

revamping

On Sunday I went to drop off the results of about a months work for reVamp. I posted about reVamp here a while ago, but to explain more about it, here's a quote from the press release:

"Cancer Research UK has joined forces with reVamp, the eco-couture designers, to launch an exclusive collection of clothing and accessories recycled from stock donated to Cancer Research UK shops.

reVamp’s collection, on sale in May, showcases the best in established and emerging design talent from across the UK. The collection will be available to buy at the Marylebone High Street Cancer Research UK shop in London, and online at the Cancer Research UK eBay store. "

So as I said in the previous post, Eric came and modelled the pieces I made, and here are some pics:
(I posted the "before" pics in this post)




We had to choose one piece to be shown at the launch, which is going to be on Thursday, so I've chosen the silver skirt with one of my tie-belts. I'm so excited for the launch, if it weren't raining and there wasn't studying to be done I'd be out skipping or dancing or some sort of celebratory bopping.

Tie-belts are something I started making about a year ago, to sell on my stall/etsy with my other recycled jewellery and accessories. As you can probably tell from this blog I'm quite the charity shop lurker, and I always used to see loads of ties in charity shops, so I dedided to make use of them. The cool part is that the way I make them, they can be fastened in different ways so that you can wear it around the waist, on the hip, in your hair...or anywhere else! So when I went to collect materials from Cancer Research I scooped up a stash of ties and here's what they look like now...





Now I just got to figure out that constant question, what to wear to the launch...