Made myself a little something ...

Having seen a very sweet Tiny Bat Necklace (by Giles and Brother for Kabiri) in this month's Elle,



I of course wanted one for myself. So, combining a couple of old necklaces and a bat charm,





I made my own version:

Paper Snowflakes

Inspired by this blog entry by the fabulous Lupin, I've created some paper snowflake garlands:






Ever the reuser of things, I've cut them from old envelopes, and the result is quite pleasing. I've deliberately not used completely blank pieces of paper, allowing there to be a little pattern on some of the snowflakes. For example, many envelopes have a blue pattern on the inside, which gives a lovely icy effect. Things such as postmarks give interesting detail too. I've woven white thread through the holes in the snowflakes, making them into a garland and allowing them to be hung. You could make lots of them so they form a curtain like Lupin's. I may well do just that too :)

Recycled Packaging

As I have mentioned here in a previous post, reclaimed materials are an important part of what I do. I not only reuse old jewellery in my work, but I also try to use old packaging wherever possible. So I keep all the bubble wrap, boxes, jiffy bags, tissue paper and other packaging that I receive through the post, and reuse it when I mail out my work.

I store the tissue paper in this little table:



My work gets wrapped up in reused paper and packaging to be posted:





I have recently been advised to start using gift boxes to give my jewellery a more professional edge and, while this is of course a good idea, I was unsure about it because that would involve buying new boxes rather than reusing old ones. The solution came when I was watching Dragons' Den one evening and saw the Tiny Box Company's pitch. I'd heard of them before, and, while watching the pitch, admired their commitment to using purely recycled materials in the manufacture of their boxes. I placed an order with them, and received some lovely purple boxes that I was very happy with. A couple of days ago I put my Black Fuzzy Bat in the post in one of them:



Now that little bat is all wrapped up and off to America!

Repurposeful Jewellery

I love using reclaimed materials in my work. I take the bus up to Stourbridge and scour the second-hand shops for old jewellery to repurpose into new.



You can therefore expect to find reused chain, beads, and other found materials in many of my items. Search repurposed in my Etsy shop for a few of those, for example: