reuse • upcycle • sustainability • zero waste

I have my parents to thank for my passion for zero waste. Having lived through the shortages, rationing and ‘make do and mend’ era of World War II, they instilled in me the ethos that nothing should ever be wasted. Don’t get me wrong, unlike my Dad, I’m not a keeper of every last rusty nail, but I rarely buy things that are not essential, I donate or recycle anything I no longer need and only keep things I feel are beautiful or could be made into something useful… and the idea will come to me in time.

I love finding new ways to reuse leftover or long forgotten materials and my small accessories are a great example. In creating successful designs, I’m always sampling different patterns with different colour combination to see what works. The resulting swatches are eventually repurposed into lavender bags, specs cases and chubby keyrings.

The current coronavirus situation has given me time to reorganise my home studio and rediscover lots of material I’ve had since studying at art school. It’s been great fun to spend some mindful time, switched off from day to day worries, drawing and making. I’ve been able to use offcuts of paper, card and photos I have in the studio rather than buying new materials to create these useful little note books.

One of the projects we were given at art school was to find new uses for leather off-cuts from the automotive industry. I was highly commended for ideas to create flooring, lampshades and jewellery, utilising smaller and smaller pieces with virtually no waste. I’m still making the minimalist design leather bracelets… and during lockdown I’ve been using long forgotten leather and acrylic offcuts to make some wearable art jewellery.