RECYCLED DECORATIONS

Festive recycled decorations to adorn your home this Season.

Festive recycled inspiration

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THE GREEN GABLES

Plantable Wildflower Heart Paper Bunting

I really love the idea of buying something beautiful but that will also serve a purpose after use. Rather than chucking this heart garland in the bin after use (though can't imagine you would want to!), you can actually plant it in order to grow wild flowers. I think this is a really lovely gift idea. 

Gabrielle Treanor, designer and owner of The Green Gables creates eco-friendly, plantable and colourful paper bunting. Perfect for decorating a wedding venue or your home, this length of paper garland is made from handmade paper embedded with wildflower seeds. The handmade plantable wildflower paper makes this a unique garland decoration that is beautiful and eco-friendly at the same time. The paper is thick and the garland can be used many times over but if you really want to, you can plant the paper and watch wildflowers grow from it!

Gabrielle hand cuts the hearts from handmade plantable wildflower seed paper and you can choose to have the hearts strung on jute string or co-ordinating skinny satin ribbon. You can adjust the spacing by moving the hearts along the string to your desired position. The large hearts each measure 12.5cm at its widest point x 11cm long (approx 5" x 4") and the smaller hearts each measure 9.5cm x 8cm (approx 3.5" x 3"). As they are cut from handmade paper they are a slightly off-white colour with seed flecks. Choose from the regular length of 12 hearts on 2.5m ribbon or string, or the extra long length of 24 hearts on 5m of ribbon or string. Each length of wildflower paper bunting is carefully handmade by Gabrielle in her garden studio.

The Green Gables website

To see The Green Gables website click HERE.

TOILET ROLLS

Before you throw away that toilet roll, think again! I have been looking at the artwork of Yuken Teruya, in particular his range of toilet roll artwork. It is utterly stunning. 

Taking a simple object like a discarded toilet roll and turning it into a piece of art.  Just take a look at Yuken's toilet roll faces, they are very inspirational.

The delicate carvings by Anastassia Elias inside toilet rolls are amazing also. They are tiny paper cut out scenes inside a toilet roll.

So remember, next time you go to throw away toilet rolls, don't!

PETER DAHMEN

This is a very clever make your own paper sculpture from Peter Dahmen. Downloadable A4 sheets and and video on how to make a paper sculpture. Have a go! Let me know how you get on.

To see more of his paper sculptures click HERE.

ARBEE CARDS

I love the idea of recycling greeting cards once they have been taken down from the mantlepiece. These cards from Arbee Cards are actually plantable.

The plantable paper is handmade from cotton (tree-free!) and is UK-made (no travel - low carbon) and contains a mix of wildflower seeds which look like small black specks in the paper: Catchfly, English Daisy, Sweet Alyssum, Snapdragon, Corn Poppy and Black Eyed Susan. 

The entire card is planted in soil or compost (patio pot, windowbox or garden bed) and must be kept moist and preferable in a sunny spot and should germinate in a few weeks. The paper itself breaks down in the soil and is bleach-free and completely eco-friendly. The card has a textured side from the process of handmade paper-making, with the upside of the paper feeling like a heavyweight artists' paper. 

As Rachel Law of ArbeeCards said "I use it for making cards & wedding stationery. Mother's Day plantable cards were so popular with people just loving the idea of posting their mum some flowers for her to grow. They are becoming increasingly popular for weddings, with plantable place cards doubling as favours - people get some lovely flower seeds for the garden to take home instead of wasteful expensive favours, keeping everything environmentally-friendly. Really, who needs more sugared almonds in a chiffon bag! I try to encourage couples to make their white wedding green - and much of my cards & stationery is recycled card, upcycled vintage papers, buttons, lace and re-used cards & papers'.

To see Arbee Cards website click HERE.      To shop online click HERE. 

GREEN POST

Above: Mini eco card set - 5 folded cards with handmade envelopes.

Kendra Zvonik makes 100% recycled handmade papercrafts. Her company GREEN POST was created with the intentions to re-use, recycle and upcycle all the "junk" paper that comes into our lives (such as junk mail, useless bills, receipts, tags, etc). As Kendra says, "Paper is one of the easiest and most forgiving materials to work with and to recycle. Paper is everywhere and can be re-used (possibly) infinitely."

Kendra makes the most wonderful Eco plantable gift tags. Tags that you can use and then later plant to grow wild flowers! A really creative eco friendly wedding/party/business favour. Made from recycled papers (created out of "junk" paper collected by the artist). Seeds are incased inside the pulp paper. The paper is then pressed and air dried. They hang on a 12" piece of natural hemp twine through a punched hole. They are then stamped on the back with SOY INK. All the contents is 100% recycled.

You can buy Green Post products via the Etsy shop HERE.

MARY QUITE CONTRARY

I love the work of Mary of 'Mary Quite Contrary'. With her scalpel and a pile of papers she creates fantastic cards. I am really impressed with how neatly she uses the scalpel. For the amount of work that goes into each card I think her prices are very good. If you are looking for something different I really recommend her cards. You can buy her cards and artwork from either of her shops by clicking here:

ETSY/SHOP/QUITECONTRARY or FOLKSY/SHOP/QUITECONTRARYCRAFTS

OONA PATTERSON

Oona Patterson is a artist who specializes in miniture sculptures.

Her work in influenced by old fashioned children's tales.

Above: 'Digging Words' was commissioned to be shown in a library. Some of the figures, little more than 2cm tall, toil at digging deep down into the book they stand on. Others rest beside minute buckets and spades whilst dust and debris scatters across the pages.

To see more of Oona's work click HERE

RECYCLED PAPERS

THINK BEFORE YOU THROW AWAY PACKAGING!

If you can't find a way to creatively use it, then make sure you recycle it.

Did you know that you can use old placemats, beakers, etc and cover them in old papers.

Cover with a gloss or PVA. Use old maps, newspapers, magazines, comics, letters, fabric, the possibilities are endless!

The average household throws away 13,000 separate pieces of paper each year. Most is packaging and junk mail.

Recycled papers no longer look different. You can now find recycled content papers with the same whiteness and brightness as virgin papers.

ALEXANDER KORZER-ROBINSON

I first saw Alexander Korzer-Robinson's work at the RWA, Bristol at the 'Celebration of Paper' exhibition and really loved what he had done.

Alexander Korzer-Robinson is an artist from Berlin now living in Bristol. He draws from a background in psychology. “my 
art practice focuses on the notion of the inner landscape. Using generally discarded 
materials, I make objects as an invitation to the viewer to engage her/his own inner life in 
order to assign meaning to the artwork”.

The cut book art has been made by working through the books, page by page, cutting around 
some of the illustrations while removing others. The images seen in the finished work, are 
left standing in the place where they would appear in the complete book. As a final step the 
book is sealed around the cut, and can no longer be opened.

Taken on my iphone