Red Cross Blogs

Baubles out of a load of old rubbish

By Alix Miller
September 21, 2010 at 4:08 pm

The other day I learnt the art of making jewellery out of old bits of cork, strips of paper, beads from unwanted necklaces and bracelets and the odd feather. If it sounds like a load of old rubbish, well, it is.

I had my jewellery ‘upcycling’ workshop at the Start Garden Party to Make a Difference, where the Red Cross has had a stand. It was one of many workshops on offer from 8-19 September, to encourage people to recycle in the spirit of sustainability, and donate to our charity shops.

So, perhaps my creations aren’t going to make it into the fashion pages any time soon. But I hope you’ll agree from my attempt at jewellery-making, it’s amazing what you can make out of things you’d normally discard. This necklace, for instance, took me all of five minutes to string together.

The workshop was held by Alessandra Rigillo (pictured), from Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining. She was sporting her own infinitely more impressive homemade necklace made from old bottletops. Other materials laid on included crocheted flowers, balls of coloured papier mache and buttons, but really, virtually anything goes, according to Alessandra.

She started by showing me how to make a bead out of a strip of paper which you cut into a long cone shape, glue one side of and then roll up. Who’d have thought bits of scrap paper = beads. The trickiest bit of making my necklace was securing the clasps at the end, but Alessandra and a team of experts were on hand to help me and other attendees out.

After that I experimented with the different materials. The workshop was buzzing – one woman I met - who was churning out woolly flowers at a rate of knots, said: “It’s a wonderful idea, and has revived my love of crocheting.” Even the women who looked tentative initially about getting creative,  doubting their abilities, soon got stuck in.

Feeling crafty? learn how to transform a scarf into a top, from my colleague Victoria’s experience of attending another upcycling workshop.

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Tags: charity shops, donate, fundraising

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