Eco warrior jewellery

2012-05-19T11:07:00.000+02:00

I recently had an article published about my upcycled jewellery in the wonderful online magazine Artizen

Press Article Becycle

Upcycle Jewellery tutorial: Pine cone necklace

2011-11-23T12:13:00.000+01:00

Ajouter une légende

I enjoy playing around with so many different " ingredients" for jewellery making, jewellery can be made from many upcycled elements. So continuing on the theme of using natural elements in jewellery design I will show you in this tutorial how to make earrings and necklaces from the larger pine cone scales.This project is simple but it might inspire you to create more complicated natural jewellery.

A nice "fresh pine cone"

Chose a fresh cone as the colour will be brighter and it even looks like its been varnished. Brake a way the scaled from the cone use pliers for this as it quiet tough.

Trim the edges with scissors.

Drill a small hole in the top with the smallest drill bit you have.

Use jump rings so you can thread the scales onto necklaces or earrings.

Some examples

Recycling crew at Glastonbury Festival

2011-11-16T10:16:00.001+01:00

The festival site resembles a rubbish dump on Monday

Surface rubbish

I've been off grid for a while, travelling and working around Europe. Although not jewellery related I wanted to write about my experience this summer working as part of the recycling crew during and after Britain's largest music and performing arts festival, Glastonbury Festival. Set in the rural county of Somerset, the Festival employs large numbers of people in the recycling and the clean up operation. Over 150 000 people visit the festival during the week end. This represents the size of a large town in England and they consume and discard a large amount of "stuff" not always rubbish. I was quite shocked and saddened by the sight, I hadn't been to the festival for nearly 20 years and I can't recall it being in such a state at the end, it defiantly reflects the throw away mentality that exists now a days. The clean up operation can last for many weeks after the festival depending on the conditions, this year was not one of the easiest. As it was a very muddy festival and rubbish got buried in the mud which then dried and so the ground had to be ploughed up several times to bring drinks can, plastic bottles, large quantity of sun glasses and various array of lost and thrown away items to the surface. The fields of Worthy farm and the surrounding land on which the festival is held, need to be spotless so the herd of diary cows can return to graze in safety.

A few days into the clean up, the rubbish is bagged up.

A fleet of over 10 refuse lorries work for nearly 2 weeks taking the non recyclable rubbish to the land fill

                                                                 Glastonbury festival tries to encourage the public to do as much recycling on site as possible, by providing different recycling bins and handing out bin bags with " love the farm leave no trace" printed on them. The festival organisers aimed for 60% recycling this year, I don't know if that target was reached this year, an unconfirmed rumour was that over a million pounds was spent on land fill taxes. What ever the exact percentage of recycling Glastonbury Festival achieves, it does try to be as green as possible.
Below are a few examples of creative upcycling and recycling.


                                               The Mutoid Waste Co

The Mosquito built by Joe Rush makes its point over the Bloodsucker Bar

The Head On Fire - Built by Crusty Mark and lit by Eddie Egal

A short video on some of the recycling before the festival

Read about some of the recycling efforts in the Glastonbury Festival blog

Upcycled rain coats and bags made from discarded festival tents
by WiTHiNTENT

CD fish created by Recycled Venues

Bhopal Medical Appeal recycled art project at Glastonbury 2011

Upcycle Jewellery tutorial

2011-06-04T18:22:00.000+02:00

Make a bracelet from cherry

pip beads

You will need:
-Cherries
-Small drill bit, 1.5mm
-Elastic thread
-Needle
-Drill or a Dremel

Fruit seeds and pips were used during the prehistory to make beads. They were probably the earliest kind of jewellery along with shells, feathers and bone. They are still used in country that have abundant supply's of lovely coloured seeds such as Brazil. Here in Europe, there are a few that can be used and cherry pips are easy to get hold of. For this tutorial I have used wild cherries, they are smaller and plentiful in the hedgerows in western France but you can use shop bought, the pips will be larger.

Cleaning the pips
Although wild cherries are bitter it is possible to cook them up with some sugar and eat them. Simmer slowly until the pulp comes off the pip. If you have shop bought or garden cherries then all you have to do is eat them and clean them inside your mouth.

Wash, scrub if necessary and dry, when they are dry rub them together to get rid of the bits of dried cherry that might be left.

Drill a hole through the pip ( there is a natural dip at the top of the cherry so start here) The pip is hollow, drill through the first section and continue to the second bit do not apply too much pressure as it will slightly crack the outside of the pip.
String the pip beads on the elastic thread. You could also make necklaces and earrings with the beads.

The darker cherry pip on this bracelet were found on the ground under the tree they seem to have been coloured by the rotting pulp.

The natural oils on the skin will in time give the bracelet a lovely patina.

Did you know that there has been a long tradition of making herbal tea from the cherry stems, it is used as a diuretic. Here is a link to a recipe.

Animated film about Ewaste

2011-05-31T13:31:00.000+02:00

A great little, animated film about the effects of the over production of electronic gadgets and the consequence on the poorer countrys who end up dealing with our ewaste

If you want to see more of their films, go to their website The story of stuff over 12 million people have already watched the 20 minute long film called "the story of stuff " which was only released on the internet in December 2010

Yiuco the upcycle hype

2011-05-28T14:57:00.003+02:00

Yiuco is a new Greek based online market place for handmade products made from upcycled, recycled or reused materials. The word Yiuco in Greek means piled up clothes. It was launched at the beginning of the year and with all the competition on the web from market places selling handmade goods it might have some trouble getting noticed. Although it does have a niche market and as far as i am aware it is the only on line market place the is solely committed to selling upcycled, recycled and reused handmade goods.

Recycled jewellery by Coca Cola

2011-05-22T15:48:00.001+02:00

In 2010 the French Coca Cola company in association with Gontie Paris started marketing recycled glass jewellery made from coca cola bottles. It seems that if a large multi national company are choosing to branch out to into such a creative venture, then the significance of the trashion movement is not just a flash in the pan. Unfortunately for the moment it's only available to French customers, but for those interested you can browse through the catalogue here and there is a brief explanation ( only in French for the moment) of the techniques used to make the jewellery.

Eco friendly and cheap tarnish remover

2011-05-14T12:09:00.000+02:00

Silver will always tarnish, it's a chemical reaction between the metal, oxygen and sulphur dioxide, sounds scientific but it just the surrendering air and if the air is heavily polluted then the tarnish effect will happen quicker.
There are commercial tarnish removers that claim to restore the silver to it's original state and they probably do, but there are concerns about the toxicity of these products. There are simple, cheap solutions using readily available household products and that are highly efficient. There are variations that I have seen on the web for this recipe and they all apparently work, but the method that i use is the following.
2 tablespoons of baking powder
1 tablespoon of salt
Some aluminium Foil and for good measure I add a some extra pieces of scrap aluminium
2 cups boiling water

If very heavily tarnished then make the solution stronger ( there is no danger for the silver)

Place the aluminium foil in the bottom of a glass bowel or jam jar, put the silver object on the foil ( it is very important that the silver is in contact with the aluminium) mix the ingredients in a separate bowel and then cover the silver object with this mixture and leave for 10 to 15 minutes ( there will be a smell of bad eggs this means it is working as the sulphur is released back into the air) After soaking, remove and lightly scrub the object with a soft toothbrush and rinse.

                                                               A after and before photo

Urban mining and E waste

2011-01-26T12:29:00.013+01:00

photo by JohnJMatlock

Urban mining is a term used to described the process of reclaiming the compounds and elements in building, products and waste. Apparently 1 gramme of gold can be reclaimed from 41 mobile phones Unfortunately precious metals and base metals are needed more and more in the production of technological gadgets. Electrical goods nowadays have a life span of only a couple of years before it becomes e-waste, as the technology advances so fast the consumer feels the need, for different reasons to constantly update his collection of electronic gadgets The problem is not going to go away, we need to recycle all electrical items. We should be recycling all our waste but that is not technically possible, but even more importantly we should be seriously tackling the issue of packaging, and consumerism, which in the past 25 years has increased to near unsustainable levels.

photo by manbeastextraodinaire

The recycling of electronics is not a solution to the growing problem as there are many hazardous elements that need to be extracted in adequate conditions to protect the worker. At the moment too much of the e waste is being dumped on the developing countries to be "recycled" in more often than not primitive conditions . Greenpeace are working on trying to bring awareness to people, but it is issue that we should all address when buying a new phone, computer, mp3, etc.

No Dirty Gold

2011-01-16T11:19:00.000+01:00

A excellent campaign to bring awareness to the consumer about the gold mining techniques and the exploitation of the cheap local workforces around the world. Sign their pledge to end dirty gold mining practices.

The impact and pollution of gold mining on the Amazon rain forest

2010-12-25T12:44:00.005+01:00

A polluted river in Guyana

The mining of precious metal has a impact on the environment, the health of those involved and the local population. Wwf estimate that worldwide 3400 tons of mercury are released into the environment. Mercury is used to extract gold from the rock usually in the case of illegal or very rudimentary processing, the mercury is evaporated to obtain the gold. In Guyana, Suramin and Brazil there is a large problem with illegal mining in the rain forest and consequences of mercury on the local ecosystem and the inhabitants. Wwf are working with local populations to try to minimize the impact of gold mining on the local environment while still enabling very poor people to earn a living.

Check out the Wwf guianas web site for more in depth information on this subject. Mongaybay.com also have a page on their web site dedicated to this topic.

Burning the mercury which is then released in to the environment

Glass bottle jewellery

2010-12-08T19:07:00.000+01:00

Here in France most alcoholic drinks are sold in glass bottles, mainly in green, brown, blue and clear glass. None of these bottles are returnable. I cut and melt pieces of bottle glass in a kiln to create smooth looking beads.

A close up of a Stella Artois glass bottle bead bracelet

Wine and apple juice bottles were used to make these glass beads.

Blue beer bottle glass was used to make the beads of this necklace.

A close up of a bracelet with tumbled glass beer bottle beads.

A cluster of frosted beads on a necklace.

Glass beer bottle earrings with sterling silver findings.

Beer bottle cap earrings

2010-12-07T17:33:00.002+01:00

I try and collect a large example of different European beer bottle caps ( some of which i have drunk myself!) to create these fun earrings .

An example of turning useless rubbish into trashion.