Trash-pickers

"Did you get that out of the trash? You did! You trash-picker!"

"I'm not a trash-picker. I'm a recycler. That's a lot more romantic. Isn't it?"

 ['The Wild' Movie]

This week has been Council Clean Up, where households put out rubbish that's too big for the bins and the council trucks come along, smash it up and dump it as land fill.

I've been out with a fellow civic minded green recycler type, picking through the trash and I've been equal parts thrilled and appalled.

Thrilled at all the stuff we rescued from land-fill including one brand new, I swear it's never been sat on, Ikea Klappsta armchair. 

This had been pitched out (then rejected by other civic minded recycler types) I suspect, because of the wobbly legs. 

Well somebody didn't read the instructions did they? 

I got it home got out my tools and put the legs on the right way.  

It's gorgeous. It's not land fill.

My friend similarly rescued many more items of good, even lovely furniture, but some of it was very much worse off for the poor weather.

The appalling part is that people throw good quality useful stuff, unceremoniously onto the curb without giving it a thought.

I felt like putting charity shop leaflets in peoples letter boxes or a note even, saying something like:

 "Do you know that the Salvation Army will pick this stuff up, free of charge, and give it to families in need? Or sell it and feed homeless people?" "Surely a phone call is less trouble than dragging it onto the curb?" 

I just hate waste: that's why I filled two suit bags with around 30 plush toys, expensive toys, in mint condition - apart from the fact they'd been left out in the rain.  I took them home dried them on the line, washing the dirty ones, and donated them to charity myself.   

 

Apart from the fact that watching Toy Story 3 has scarred me for life, I think of all the poor little kids, who through no fault of their own, don't get nice toys at all and it breaks my heart to think of this stuff going into a dirty rubbish truck to be smashed up, buried and turned into pollution.

She-Who-Worships-Pink came with me on her first 'trash or treasure hunt' and she asked if she could find some treasure to keep. 

I told her"If it's clean and in good condition, you can take one teeny- tiny little thing" :

Yes, this was the first thing she laid eyes on!

 

We found a pitiful Bratz doll, hair all matted in a tangled ball, with a mix of craft glue and general crud, naked with no feet and again I thought of Toy Story 3...

I wish I'd thought to take before photo's - who doesn't like an extreme makeover - but you'll have to take my word for it - she really didn't look worth rescuing.

But in 15 minutes after a good shampoo, a brush through with conditioner, some prosthetic feet (old Barbie-doll boots), leggings from one of my old dolls and another Barbie hand-me-down blouse...She's like new and Pinkster adores her.

The little Pinkster decided to do a presentation for news this week on re-using and recycling which has turned out to be the hot topic this semester: 

And unfortunately the bear goes everywhere..

 

Let It Go

I was a crafty mummy last Friday. And Saturday too, but the building site got the best of me. 

There does come a point however, where you have to Let it Go.    

For a bit.

"Put down that screwdriver and step away from the Renovation, ma'am".

For two months in between school runs I've found myself  sanding and retouching paintwork.  Breaking screw heads off into the back of wardrobe handles, shopping for taps and tiles and so much more.

Last Friday we encountered a bunch of warped tiles in our lot which added a rat-run across town to the tile shop (just before school run) to my schedule. I also had to 'be there' for the shower-screen measuring guy, to tell him please just make the damned thing fit (and when he did it looked too big). Then my Saturday was held to ransom by the rubbish removal guys. Who left that pile of broken tiles and debris in the middle of the lounge????

But somehow I reached deep down into my self - got in touch with my inner-Nanna and I managed to cough-up a little creative couture for our lovely friend Blythe.

This was a promise to She-Who-Worships-Pink-and-Now-Also-Blue. An overdue promise at that.
But our little poppet has been so understanding of my newest preoccupation.  She's even been helping out - on the weekend helping cleaning, sitting quietly drawing while I screwed and filled, sanded and attached things in other rooms.  She's given advice (good advice) on colour schemes and fixtures.

Today she chose the handles for the new bathroom vanity  - OK I vetoed her first choice of  brass teddy bears.  But since we've discovered she has she has quite a good eye for aesthetic balance (except when it comes to bear handles) we gave her final say on whether they should be attached vertically rather than horizontally and she chose well.

She sat on the new toilet bowl - not yet attached - to see if there was enough leg-room between the loo and the larger shower screen. Then we made the tallest of the cabinet makers sit on it too just to be sure.
Just quietly, I really enjoy making my builders do embarrassing things.

Anyway my girl deserves a little treat and this teeny-tiny costume was it.  She's a beautiful and unique doll our Blythe and she makes a wonderful Elsa. Now Pinkster has a friend with a matching costume to hers.

I've been asked by another mum, where you get this lovely creature and you still can although mine is vintage (from 1971 the year they were both launched and spectacularly flopped).

You can buy Blythe dolls on line, they're reproducing them in Japan but they cost a bit more than Elsa herself (yes even at the scalpers' inflated E bay prices)

A Blythe can cost anywhere from $300 up to $800.

But her eyes change colour! She has a world of wigs and accessories to make even Barbie turn pea-green with envy and let's face it, she's hauntingly lovely with those enormous peepers of hers.

Hello Dolly

For the last few weekends I've been dragged out of bed at some hideous hour, because someone in the toy cupboard; "doesn't have a THING to wear"

So I spend a couple of hours designing tiny couture out of scraps of  fabric left over from various costumes I've made before. The smiles I get make it so worthwhile and, as a former designer of real peoples fashion, it's actually kind of fun.

I don't have any patterns so these are basic designs (and I use that term loosely) where I rely heavily on stretch fabrics for the body and let the tulle, lace and trims do the rest.

This one above is a basic hour-glass shaped tube. I measured the length I needed (to cover Barbie's dignity) and added a centimeter (or 1/4") at the top to allow for hemming. I measured the dolls waist and drew onto the fabric the overall shape starting with a tube and nipping it in at around the middle to form the waist.

I sewed up both sides using a stretch stitch then folded over the top edge and because I used stretch velvet which notoriously rolls on raw edges, I pinned and hemmed it by hand.

I used a wide strip of netting - about 80cms (just over 31" ) long and gathered that on one long edge before sewing it (using stretch stitch) to the velvet tube's bottom raw edge.

To make the shawl collar, I used another strip, about 5cms (roughly 2") wide measured around the doll's shoulders to get the length. This I gathered by hand, at each short end, and hand stitched it to the bodice on the side seam at the top of the tube.

All the other trims I sewed by hand and I really just made it up as I went along using whatever I had at hand that looked pretty.

Below is another version of the same idea.  With this skirt I cut the length of netting longer and twice as wide, and folded it in half along the long edge before gathering it. This made the skirt fuller but a tad harder to sew onto the Lycra top.  The straps were cut from the selvedge edge and stitched on by hand.

I fell in love with this Dora doll, but she came dressed in a football outfit and I felt she was just too pretty for a sport uniform.

These two Ballerina's wanted to be Princesses according to She-Who-Worships-Pink. So I took an hour out of my weekend  to make basic elastic-waist skirts to slip under their tutus - problem solved.

I miss designing fashion, but not the hassles of running the wholesale and retail side of the business, and spending days on end developing and cutting patterns.

This little hobby is giving me a quick fix that's creative without eating up entire days like other creative sewing projects can.

And like I said the smiles I get are such a bonus.

Plastic Fantastic

At fifty four she looks younger than she did 30 years ago and she hasn't gained a pound. She's had 130 careers and is still looking for new challenges. She' taken care of 50 pets, worn outfits designed exclusively for her by 75 top designers and starred in 25 chart-topping, direct-to-DVD movies.

How?  

Well she's never been pregnant...  

Her freckly friend Midge landed that job and where is she today you might ask?

Riffing on the Barbie theme of this week, I discovered in my archives a paper I wrote in 2004, during my MA, on Barbara Millicent Roberts of Wisconsin, (A.K.A Barbie) as a cultural icon.

So I've created a new page tab A Toy Story for your reading pleasure and maybe also to prove I can be 'serious and deep of thought'. Or at least I could B.C. (Before Child).

The paper subject was 'A Radical Ethnography' and the brief was to take an everyday object and discuss it's impact on, or reflection of, our cultural development. 

A subject dryer than an Arizona summer if you ask me. One student wrote a very clever piece centered around the transistor radio, but I wanted to take something seemingly frivolous and pretty (mostly so I could use lots of nice colourful pictures) to reflect our culture, our consumerism, body image and the developing roles of women in society.   

I don't think I received a spectacular mark for this one, but I kinda got the impression along the way that certain lesbian* members of faculty where particularly un-keen on 'girlie' stuff such as 'Chic Lit', and Barbie dolls.  Unfortunately those are two of my specialties.

The facts and figures are all updated so, if you think you're up for it, read on...

 
*Please know that I have absolutely no problem with Lesbians (some of my dearest friends are Gays)- each to their own - in fact looking back on most of the guys I dated in my twenties I can completely understand the preference.