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Lauren’s crafty ways turn the drab to fab

By Alix Miller
March 30, 2010 at 3:21 pm

One welcome silver lining to the recession has been the explosion of the mend and make do movement. Lots of us simply can’t afford to buy things as often as we did, and I love the way our collective frugality forces us to mend, reuse and recycle more…and get creative along the way.

Take my colleague Katrina who wowed us the other day by turning up to work in a dazzling shirtdress she’d made herself.  It took her a week to make it in her spare time after work and at weekends.

Some of our volunteers have taken this craze to charitable heights by using it to do some crafty fundraising; stitch-happy Lauren Shields is just one who caught our eye recently.

Lauren works at one of our charity shops in Lincolnshire and has been customising some of the clothes that don’t sell there. She embellishes them with items from the shop’s haberdashery section. Read the full story on our website.

It’s amazing what a bit of ribbon here and a decorative button there can do to make something drab fab. Here are just a few of her recent transformations:

customised hand bag

customised top

customised cardigan

If the idea of getting busy with a needle and thread to transform your old clobber is too daunting, remember you can simply donate them to your local Red Cross shop.


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