Rubbish Revamped: The Blog

Don’t feel neglected!

rubbishrevamped — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 23:16:19 +0000

Wot no posts for a while? Yes it’s been a bit quiet on the blog post front, but it doesn’t mean no action. Rubbish Revamped is busy and still sharing events and photos, but currently concentrating on the Facebook page at www.facebook.com
/rubbishrevamped. As a wannabe eco-crafting cyberbabe, one has to try different communication means on ‘tinternet – website, blog, Twitter, Facebook are the popular ones. It’s a great way to reach different people and always fun to try out new things. As Facebook ‘pages’ are accessible to everyone and are more conducive to other people joining in with comments and ‘likes’, it seems a good idea to put the focus there. If I’m wrong, and blogs remain the place to be, well, leave a comment here. Otherwise we’ll see you over on the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/rubbishrevamped.

You’ll find a guide for making a ribbon from junkmail there. Happy festive season!

Make your own junkmail bow

Rags to riches with Folksy Wall Hanging

rubbishrevamped — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 13:58:01 +0000

Thank you Megan for sending in this photo of your beautiful folksy hanging made at the Rubbish Revamped workshop. There’s an old skirt in there, and some material remnants. Others used up old curtains, a worn-out shirt and other clothing past their best, all now memorably enshrined in eye-catching folksy hangings.

Megan's Folksy Hanging

And here’s what one of the other participants said about Folksy Hanging: “Such fun – turning rags into riches. Loved the cakes, the tuition and the inspiration”. It will all be on the Rubbish Revamped menu again next year!

Worn out jeans, shirt and skirt eye-catchingly revamped

The joys of junkmail!

rubbishrevamped — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 18:03:59 +0000

Another fun evening with a lovely group of people making Junkmail Jewellery on Thursday evening. Everyone made a bracelet and then had the choice of making either earrings or a mobile phone charm.

The profile of a Rubbish Revamped workshop participant is pretty varied, both in background and age, spanning decades from teens through to 80s. You know there’s been a young ‘un in when the feedback book says “Awesome”. Thanks!

Bigging it up at the Great Northern Craft Fair

rubbishrevamped — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:29:52 +0000

Had a lovely day out with Rubbish Revamped regular Lynne at the Great Northern Craft Fair this weekend. Felt a bit depressed by the costs (yes, I know how long things take to make…) especially for silver jewellery; will stick to junkmail and button adornments for now! Completely wowed by the big knitter, Ingrid Wagner, who was vibrantly welcoming, thrusting ginormous knitting needles at anyone within reaching distance (pretty far, considering their length). I couldn’t resist buying a kit. This included needles, balls of selvage (this is apparently a strip cut off material that would go to waste) and a pattern to make a cushion. I’m actually going to make a bag. Got started last night. It’s fun but quite hard work, probably the closest I’m getting to having a work-out and building up a sweat.

My other purchase was a floral sillouette hanging from the lovely and massively talented Sarah Morpeth who creates stunning 3-D sculptures from books, among other papercraft magic. Do check out their websites. Coincidentally they are both based in Northumberland.

Batty about Butting

rubbishrevamped — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 09:25:17 +0000

Crafty mums at Stretford Children’s Centre, getting decorative with junkmail bunting.

Shhhh, heads down, we’re concentrating.

Ta dah!

Ready just in time for Sarah’s birthday. Hope it was a good one!

Bonkers for button bracelets

rubbishrevamped — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 22:11:30 +0000

Getting creative with juice cartons

A fun creative time was had at the Broomwood Youth Centre in Timperley on a cold and dark October evening. After admittedly eyeing up the Rubbish Revamped display a mite suspiciously(*) young people launched enthusiastically into making juice carton wallets and button bracelets. As you can see below, some people could not be torn away from it, equally attractive to male and female bracelet makers.

"I could do this all night long"

* That’ll be the weird looking sock creatures and junkmail creations, not the Rubbish Revamped staff, of course.

Here’s a picture of the sock bunnies just for Lucy as she was so enamoured with them. Maybe we’ll be back to make some of them? Start gathering those baby socks…

Tactile little bunnies made from baby socks and stuffed with rice and lavendar

Sock monkey self-service

rubbishrevamped — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 17:28:50 +0000

As a previous maker of a Rubbish Revamped jumper monkey, Jayne was planning to create a little sock monkey friend for him, but unfortunately couldn’t make last September’s date. As all the workshops are available as BYO (‘book your own’), she gathered a couple of mates for their own session, and here they all are, what a glamorous bunch the six of them make.

Fancy your own Rubbish Revamped event with family or friends? Email Danielle at rubbishrevamped@googlemail.com to discuss what you fancy.

Blissed Out with Buttons

rubbishrevamped — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 19:01:27 +0000

: Button bracelets, looking good enough to eat!

The evening started off with a chilled out choosing of buttons to make these funky bracelets. We stopped for tea and home-made scones before moving on to crafting little wire heart hangings. Slight error in choosing good quality silver-coated jewellery wire as it kept snapping! Sorry about that, got there eventually though! Will go back to B&Q’s £1.00 a roll wire in future… Do admire the results below.

Bedecked with stylish bracelets and hearts

Mini wire heart

The wire hearts can be hung on a Christmas tree or wall, or sewn to card for a personalised greeting card. Next up on the buttons front is Blissed Out with Buttons: The Bag. That’s Rubbish Revamped at the service of all you button crafting aficionados…

Beyond the News

rubbishrevamped — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 21:01:18 +0000

Have you seen the beautiful newspaper bags from India? Many people are interested in making their own, so we kicked off this week’s Rubbish Revamped session by coaxing newspaper sheets into useful, attractive and quite quirky bags. Fancy a go yourself? Here’s a link to one version of the bag http://www.greengreengrocer.co.uk/media/downloads/instructions.pdf
And if that wasn’t tricky enough, we moved onto weaving baskets from magazines. It’s actually a lovely technique – once you get the hang of it – that is transferable to newspaper and cardboard too. The group got quite imaginative not just with the Guardian magazine but with copies of Match magazine and Gamesmaster – no pink & girly crafting here tonight. Note the junkmail bunting hanging overhead. This is dead easy to make. I’ll post a little guide to this sometime.

Baskets and bags

Newspaper bag and magazine basket

An encounter with fame

rubbishrevamped — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 17:48:32 +0000

Rubbish Revamped meets the stars

Still nearly hyperventilating with excitement 24 hours later. Rubbish Revamped was running drop-in craft workshops for Trafford Housing Trust, celebrating the opening of new buildings and a play area with the fine folk of Lostock who braved a rather rainy afternoon. Seemingly out of nowhere there appeared a smart young man who started chatting about button bracelets “My mother was a tailor” he say, “and I’ve got a lovely box of buttons at home”. This was none other than Anthony Cotton, who plays machinist Sean in Coronation Street. Sadly he didn’t have time to make a button bracelet himself due to autograph signing demands but he did use our blueberry scented felt pen for these *sigh*.

Braving the rain to enjoy some rubbish revamping before a visit from Coronation Street stars