Raise your hand if you live in a super clean place with no garbage visible anywhere in the streets. No, garbage pilled sky high in dumps, facilities in the outskirts and in underground dumps do not count. If your hands are still up, it either means that you live in a zero waste locality or that your administration is dumping the garbage in the ocean/neighbouring towns/ country or even in space. Take a moment, and let that sink in.
All of us want to lead comfortable lives, one that is modelled on the “use and throw” philosophy. From clothes to electronics planned obsolescence is everywhere. Even a culture that is as ancient as India’s, which was once a zero waste culture, stands a mute spectator to ever growing piles of garbage. So as a designer, I feel that is it my duty to promote ethical consumption through Recycled and repurposed jewellery.
Fashion motto: Recycle, repurpose, reuse, and upcycle
Recycle, repurpose, and upcycle is a famous fashion motto. But do you know what exactly these words mean? Recycling means that you convert waste (material) into something of use. Plastic bottles can be recycled to make bags, roads, or even a pair of jeans. Many comment that Indian glass beads are worthless as their quality is sub par. But I take pride in using them not only because they are locally produced but a lot of beads are made by recycling glass bottles.
Recycling
Off late, I have been travelling a lot between Bangalore and Chennai. On most of my return journeys, I get a cup of tea or hot chocolate at the airport near my boarding gate. They have all these wooden spoons and forks for grabs that are thrown away after a single use. For my recycling challenge, I decided embellish two spoon and a fork.. First up is a spoon inspired by Disney’s Enchanted Tiki room. I am quite scared of (stuffed) birds but I enjoyed the Tiki island performance at WDW. It was colourful, energetic, and quirky and I made the spoon just like that.
Paper Machie and Newspaper bead necklace
This is my pièce de résistance is a Recycled statement necklace made with newspaper discs and paper machie beads. This is one among the seven designs that I created to teach an artisans awareness workshop recently. I will post more of the recycled, repurposed, and upcycled jewellery that I made in that workshop in a separate post soon. The beads are coloured in kid friendly edible ink and varnished for durability. I have been eyeing such fabulous statement lightweight necklaces for a long time, so when I had some time after the workshop, I made this one for myself. Sorry folks, this one is not for sale.
Upcycled Jewellery
Upcycling is adding something of value to a near waste object to increase its what. A number of initial posts on this blog are on recycled and upcycled jewellery.
A Spoonful of pearls
Have you ever heard stories of kings and queen who had so much wealth that they would hand out gemstones by a ladle/handful as gifts? I have heard many and wondered what it would be like to have atleast spoonfuls of pearls and diamonds. Naturally, that meant that I cover another wooden spoon (this one unused) with pearls and rhinestones. This is quite the addition to my spoonful of flowers pendant.
Blingy Fork pendant
After dressing up two spoons, it was time to dress up a fork. I painted a wooden unused fork and covered it with old rhinestones and natural seeds. While both the spoonful of pearls and Blingy fork pendant did not turn out the way I intended and I would never sell them as they are oddly shaped with not much finesses. Nevertheless, I think that it was a fun experiment to make them.
Re-purposed jewellery
Re-purposing is using an once used (preferably near waste) object for some other purpose with a little or no modification. Cosmetic modifications are typically used i while creating jewellery. In my post Responsible repurposing in Riti Jewellery, I wrote about how I reused and repurposed beads and pendants to create a collection. In my post Luna Moth Necklace a UFO story, I wrote about using UFOs to create assemblage jewellery. Don’t know what an UFO is? Then you must read the above post where I tell an interesting story about Creators.Inc.
I worked on the Aurora necklace from the Swap and hop to make it stable. Inspired by the Bee components that Mr. Erin made for the Art bead scene studio challenge, I made insect connectors. I feel that the drawer pull is a light bulb calling the insects its way. In this process of transformation, the form of the necklace has changed. While it is no longer the Aurora Borealis necklace in terms of colour and finish, I feel that the essence of the concept where life is attracted to light remains – almost too literally.
I hope you enjoyed looking at my Recycled and repurposed jewellery for this challenge. I would love to hear from now and often. So please do comment on the posts and keep coming back to see what I have for you in the days to come. Until then, Recycle, repurpose, reuse, and upcycle.
This month’s Participants
This is a blog hop. Please visit the other participants to see how they have all repurposed and recycled objects into art.
Art Elements Team
I hope you found it interesting
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