Vintage Lifestyle: Bristol Textile Recyclers Kilo Sale

A few weeks back an email dropped into my inbox inviting me along to a vintage kilo sale hosted by Bristol Textile Recyclers. I have been buying vintage fabric and clothes for over fifteen years and attended all kinds of events...but never a kilo sale. I was intrigued and happily accepted BTR's invite, we headed up to Bristol for the November Fashion Salvage Kilo Sale.

If you've never heard of Bristol Textile Recyclers, I'll give you a bit of background info. They divert a staggering twenty tonnes of textiles from landfill daily. The majority of textiles thrown out by households end up in landfill, with Defra estimating that 1.5 million tonnes a year of unwanted clothing is eventually land filled. Textile recycling is a great way to save resources and if clothes can be reused rather than dumped in the ground, then it's better for the environment all round.

You can see the huge amounts of textiles BTR deal with as soon as you walk into their warehouse. All around the edges of the kilo sale space are bales of clothes stacked up from floor to ceiling. BTR hand sort all their clothes and have a dedicated team of over seventy staff carrying out this mammouth task.

I didn't know what to expect from a BTR kilo sale and have to admit, was slightly cynical about BTR's ability to sift through all those clothes and pull out genuine vintage items. I needn't have worried, the first crate I looked in turned up two beautiful skirts made by Jaeger and Eastex - and the finds just kept coming. I spotted lots of genuine vintage clothes and plenty of modern retro pieces from high street stores. The BTR team really do know their stuff and they must employ some eagle eyed staff.

My husband was in leather jacket heaven and tried on dozens. I would say there are less clothes for men in the crates, but there were still plenty of finds to be had if you are prepared to look for them. And that's the main thing about a kilo sale, you need to roll up your sleeves and get delving. I was cold when we arrived at the BTR warehouse, after about thirty minutes I had soon warmed up. I've always loved looking for vintage finds and don't mind getting stuck in when faced with a pile of textiles.

I had been unsure as to whether I should bring our seven year old daughter along to the sale. I wondered if it would be boring for her. Again I didn't need to worry, she was in her element. Every time I turned around she had a different hat on, or coat, or scarf. Watching her dig deep into each crate made me realise that a BTR kilo sale is like getting your hands on the biggest dressing up box you could imagine. All around me were groups of friends arm-deep in clothes, pulling out hats, tops and coats and having a great time trying them on. You never know what you're going to find and that's part of the attraction of a BTR kilo sale.

It costs just £1 to get in and they provide free tea and coffee in the staff room (which doubles as a changing room). The best thing to do is grab as many clothes as you can fit into the plastic sack BTR give you and then head off to the changing room. You can sift through your finds at a more leisurely pace in there, have a cuppa and try on anything you feel like purchasing. Again, the staff room was full of groups of people enjoying themselves, trying on quirky clothes and swapping their finds with other people if they didn't want them.

So, what did we find at the kilo sale? Here are some photos of our best finds.

A beautiful velvet Jaeger skirt featuring a stunning floral pattern, photos don't do it justice.

Another velvet skirt featuring a pattern of falling leaves, this time by Eastex.

This pretty skirt isn't vintage, but it has a definite retro vibe to it...

As I mentioned above, our daughter came away from the kilo sale with the most finds. Her dressing up box is currently over flowing...

She found this beautiful pale green faux fur stole and has worn it over the Disney princess dress she also bagged at the sale.

Also spotted by my daughter:
Fab vintage Junior Miss dress from St Michael
Gorgeous scarlet red velvet dress
Pale teal party dress with sequin detail
A cobalt blue ice skating dress
Beautiful handmade Arran knit cardigan
A selection of hats (not pictured) including a vintage Kangol number

I am over the moon with everything we managed to salvage. It feels great to think these clothes will have a new life with in our wardrobes and not end up in landfill. I would highly recommend going along to a BTR Fashion Salvage Kilo Sale, we will definitely be back. The next one is due to take place on Saturday 10th December 2016. The best way to keep up to date with BTR events is to head to their Facebook page.

Disclaimer: Bristol Textile Recyclers offered me entry and 5kg of textiles for free in return for a review of their kilo sales. All opinions and photos are my own and I will definitely be back as a paying customer in the future!

Making a shoebox jetpack: a creative, upcycling idea for kids

A couple of weeks ago Magoo asked if we could make a jetpack. I've got used to these kinds of requests since becoming a Mum. I knew we had an old shoebox waiting to go out in the recycling & thought the lid would make a good cardboard jetpack.
We grabbed our craft materials and Magoo set to work decorating the lid of the shoebox.

You can never have too many glittery stars on a rocket backpack can you?
We also covered the top of the shoebox lid with paper to create a surface for Magoo to draw her control buttons onto.

I knew we had some yellow and orange netting from a previous crafty project where were had made Easter bonnets back in April. So we reused our upcycled netting from our local Children's Scraptsore to make the jet flames


We also used the netting to make arm straps so that Magoo could wear the jetpack on her back.
So after cutting, sticking and gluing an unwanted shoebox lid, the jetpack was finished and ready to play with...

Once all the decorating had been completed Magoo was desperate to try it on. She decided that a jetpack would definitely help her to ride faster on her bike...which I think it may well have done :)

All you need to make this backpack is a shoebox lid (or maybe a cereal box), some thin netting or ribbon, glittery stars or stickers, glue, scissors and lots of imagination...
This week I am linking up with:
Whatever the Weather over on www.lifeunexpected.co.uk and Monkey and Mouse.
Country Kids over on the www.coombemill.com blog.

I'm linking up with #Trash2Treasure also on the www.coombemill.com blog.

Celebrating creative upcycling and crafts at Children's Scrapstores

When I was a child I loved nothing better than making stuff out of bits and bobs destined for the bin. I cannot count the number of cardboard box, tin foil, loo roll monsters I made when I was little. A pile of cardboard, string, glue and poster paints fired up my imagination and made me think ‘what shall I create today?’

Across the UK there are a network of Scraptores UK that continue the tradition of helping children to use their imaginations and create something with their hands. Each scrapstore is a treasure trove of clean scrap waste materials donated by business to be reused by local children in whatever way their creative urge takes them. The range of materials in any of the scrapstore changes each day and could include card, paper, textiles, paint, cork, wool, cardboard tubes, netting, gauze and many other things.

Scrapstores promote ‘play without rules’ and understand the importance of creative play in a child’s development. Every child needs to have the chance to squish clay, get covered in paint and look at a pile of scrap and think ‘what could I make with that?’ Scrapstores offer affordable craft materials to a wide range of bodies working in education, training, arts and culture, environment and conservation and projects involving children and young people. By taking familiar objects we all recognise from everyday use and encouraging children to use them in new and unusual ways, Scrapstores foster creative expression. The organisation has already helped out over 80,000 community groups by providing access to an exciting variety of materials.

Whilst local branches operate as separate entities, ScrapstoresUK was set up in an attempt to coordinate the work that individual scrapstores do across the UK. ScrapstoresUK acts as a champion for the movement and raises public awareness, facilitates fundraising and attempts to make each scrapstore run in an effective and efficient way. They also offer a useful online directory of all the scrapstores, so if you feel inspired to find out more, their website will have all the information you need to track down your local store.

All Scrapstores have different means of accessing their scrap materials. In some you need to pay an individual membership fee, at others you simply pay for the scrap you take on the day. Membership is generally offered to groups who work in creative play, care, educational and therapeutic settings. A number of Scrapstores also have shops open to the public selling good quality art and craft materials from glue to paintbrushes to complement the scrap.

We paid a visit to my local scrapstore which is based in Bristol to find out more about the work they do. The Bristol Children's Scrapstore is one of the oldest in the UK and has been open for over thirty years. To access the main scrap warehouse you need to be a member, but the Bristol branch also operates a craft supplies store called Artrageous Store which is open to the general public. Artrageous is a thriving business where you can find a wide selection of goods including art supplies such as glue, paint and modelling clay, they also stock puppets, wooden toys and musical instruments. Every other weekend Artrageous throws open its doors and invites children to come along and try out the craft materials. These ‘Super Saturday Sample Sessions’ encourage children to gain hands-on experience of creating a finished crafty item from scratch. The friendly staff encourage kids to get their hands on raffia, felt, glitter, crayons and lots of gloopy glue. All the proceeds from Artrageous support the Children’s Scrapstore and help to maintain local community projects working with local children.

Alongside Artrageous is the adjoining Children’s Scrapstore warehouse. There are an abundance of crafty delights with large containers filled with netting, colourful gauzes, plastic tubes, surgical masks, piles of remote controls, reels of sparkling paper, mounds of foam shapes, towers of take-away cartons and even the odd shop mannequin. Each item was destined for landfill and through Scrapstores it can now find a new life in a creative project.

The Scrapstores movement is something to be cherished and supported. By encouraging creative play, children learn communication skills, creativity and problem solving, team work and collaboration and a willingness to experiment. As with all charity projects, Scrapstores needs resources to keep functioning. Whether you donate scrap, volunteer your time or become a member, there are many ways to keep your nearest branch operating. Now I’ve discovered my local scrapstore, it would take a gang of foil covered, paint daubed, googly eyed cardboard box monsters to keep me away!

all photos were taken by my niece Jessica Chappell, you can see her blog here www.kingofthesheep.blogspot.co.uk

Scraptores UK

Bristol Children's Scrapstore

Artrageous Store

If you're interested in finding more interesting children's craft projects, you may like to follow my "Kids Crafts: gluing, cutting, sticking, painting" board on Pinterest...

Follow Pouch : blogging + craft's board Kids Crafts: gluing, cutting, sticking, painting on Pinterest.

I'm linking up with these lovely blogs:

Trash 2 Treasure over on www.coombemill.com

Brilliant Blog Posts over on honestmum.com

Share With Me over on www.letstalkmommy.com

What I'm Writing over on writingbubble.co.uk

Breathing new life into old furniture

Since moving to a 1930s house, I'm determined to furnish it with quirky, one-off pieces rather than mass produced stuff. I've already blogged about my beautiful (bargain) dining table. Now I want to show you a cabinet and shelves I recently repurposed with help from my other half. I haven't done anything fancy or ground breaking with them...but it just shows how a simple lick of paint can breathe life back into something deemed a bit 'scruffy'.

In fact the small cabinet was considered so scruffy it was making its way to the municiple tip before my Mum and husband rescued it. My Mum approached the man who was just about to fling it into the 'wood' section and he happily handed it over. They bought it home for me and declared proudly that they had 'bought me a present'. Now, I know lots of people would be a bit annoyed about their presents coming from a waste-sorting centre, but my family know me better than that...

My husband sanded it down and chiselled off the yucky cork matting which was glued to the top. It was then painted in an ivory shade and once dry, we put it in our conservatory. It's the perfect place for me to put my cup of tea and my daughter has filled it with her books. It's a sturdy, little multi-functional piece of furniture and I love it.

A few weeks back my Mum gave me a set of shelves. They had been hanging in her garage for years and were looking a bit unloved, but I could see they still had potential! We repeated the same process with the shelves as the cabinet, sanded it down and a coat of ivory paint to spruce them up a bit. They now hang in our bathroom and keep all our toiletry gubbins tidy.

Even Mr Bump is amazed by the transformation!

**update**

Since writing this blog post I have watched the first episode of "Kirstie's Fill Your House For Free". I wanted to write a quick update. I've always been keen on getting my hands on furniture for free or at a bargain price. I've been using Freecycle for years and often scour Ebay and Gumtree for second hand items for our house. I had a quick look on Twitter after the first episode had aired and there was alot of cynicism and negativity. Many people were saying the items aren't truly 'free' if you have to use power tools, paint and the skills of top designers to alter them. But I think that misses the point. This is telly-land after all and lots of these shows are based on the 'big reveal' at the end. Even by employing designers, there was nothing on the show that the average Joe couldn't replicate. Well, maybe sawing an iron bath in half with an angle grinder isn't for everyone...but most of it was pretty do-able. Some basic DIY and a bit of elbow grease is all you need to start filling your home with quirky, one-off pieces. I think any show that encourages people to re-use rather than buy new is good in my books.

What I do hope this show encourages, is not just getting stuff off freecycle etc...I hope it encourages people to donate to freecyle, charity shops, local recycling projects. We need people to think twice about taking old furniture to the tip. What's not to like about clearing your clutter via freecycle? People come and get stuff you don't want direct from your house - you don't have to lug it into the boot & drive to the local waste centre. And many charity shops & furniture projects collect items from your house for free.

In fact, after watching Kirstie's program, I was inspired to write to my local MP. I've been to our local waste recycling centre with garden waste on a number of occasions and seen wonderful pieces of furniture being chucked into the wood section. On one occasion a perfectly usuable cabinet was thrown away & I approached a member of staff to ask if I could have it. I was told that staff are not allowed to pull things out of the containers because they will get sacked for 'theft'. I think it's awful that my local council does not seem to want to send less waste to landfill. It's actively discouraging the reuse of furniture and encouraging more waste. It's a case of trying to join up the people who want to get rid of stuff with the people who want to reuse the stuff.

I'm still awaiting a response from my MP, I'll keep you posted......

New Years Resolution: decluttering

I'm not keen on making loads of New Years Resolutions which fall by the wayside come the end of January. One I am planning on sticking to is making an attempt to declutter our house.

This plastic jug pictured above just about sums up my problem. It sits tucked away under my toilet cistern, in our bathroom. Everytime a toothbrush gets too worn out to be used on our teeth, I put it in the jug where it might 'come in handy' for something. My husband thinks I'm mad, but tolerates these things. Whilst I am not a hoarder on this type of scale, I do hate to throw things out. The thought of all the waste making it's way to landfill in this country alone on a daily basis makes me shudder.

Kerbside recycling has improved dramatically over the past few years and we can easily put out paper, cardboard, certain plastics, food waste and garden waste to be picked up from our doorsteps. I'm also keen on passing on sellable things and regularly fill bags for charity. We've also used Freecycle on many occasions and I think it's a fantastic site and must help to prevent more waste going to landfill. We've passed on old TVs, a stereo, old toys, plant pots, boxes of tiles and even a double mattress. The fact that someone is willing to collect from your house is fantastic. I think since we've lived in our current house, we've been to the local rubbish dump about 5 times over 5 years, which is pretty good going and I think Freecycle has been a big help in keeping those trips to the dump to a minimum.

But what about the jug of toothbrushes? There are just some things that don't fit into the kerbside collections and noone would want these in a charity shop and I think they are even beyond Freecyclers, yet I can't bring myself to chuck them in the bin...I know one of the golden rules on recycling is not to buy items in the first place if you can possibly help it, which is something I try to stick to, but as far as toothbrushes go, I don't want to lose my teeth, so I'm going to keep on brushing them. Which leaves the problem of what to do with the old brushes.

And there are lots of other household items that fall into that category, video tapes, old CDs, wine bottle corks, plastic spoons...the list goes on.

Which is why am I so glad I stumbled across this website when trying to find ways to recycle my growing collection of toothbrushes.

How can I recycle this? is a fantastic source of ideas for all those hard to recycle items. It's run by two people who were in exactly the same position as I am now when faced with waste which could be reused if only they knew how. The site works by taking suggestions for items to be reused, then it's up to the good people of the internet to post their suggestions underneath said item. The site also likes to promote people's clever, interesting and creative ideas for recycling something.

A quick search of the site throws up this post on "How can I reuse or recycle … old toothbrushes?". There are some interesting suggestions, including using a Terradent toothbrush, which helps to eliminate the need to keep buying new toothbrushes in the first place. Apart from toothbrushes there are so many other clever ideas, in fact the site has over 14,000 suggestions for a plethora of items. It's definitely a site I will be bookmarking for later use!

Magazine feature

I'm so excited to be featured in the first ever issue of 'Sew Eco' magazine! Pouch is listed in the 'Gallery of Inspiration' section at the front of the publication. They have included a lovely big image of the 'go green reversible market day tote', I think it looks fab!

It's always lovely to see your work in print...

Vintage love: cotton bed linen

I love finding pieces on vintage cotton, especially double duvet covers like these. There's so much fabric to work with because of the double layer! I bought these a couple of weeks ago, they are in pristine condition and I love both patterns, even though they are both very different.

I always get excited about thinking what I can make with newly thrifted fabric, I think the brown swirls will be sewn into market totes and the purple and lilac floral fabric will become peg bags, but I change my mind all the time, I wont properly decide until I'm stood over it with a pair of scissors in my hand!

New Listing: Peppermint and sage vintage fabric peg/clothespin bag

This is the newest addition to the Pouch range of peg bags. Made with repurposed, vintage fabric & a vintage wooden coat hanger. It features a pretty floral pattern in shades of peppermint, lime and sage green.



There’s no better way to dry your washing, than to peg it out and let it dry in the breeze. The tumble drier is one of the most energy-hungry appliances in the house. By reducing the number of times you use a tumble drier by just one load per week, you will reduce your carbon emissions by approximately 60kg a year. And reduce your electricity bill!



Full details here:
Peppermint and sage vintage fabric clothespin bag

New listing: Reversible lavender and lilac vintage fabric tote

I have just listed this lavender and lilac vintage fabric tote in Pouch's Etsy store

This tote makes a great beach bag, knitting bag, book bag or gym bag. It's also perfect for taking to the shops or farmers market to stock up on provisions.

This tote has no visible seams, so it is reversible – making this two bags in one!

Made with upcycled, vintage fabric featuring a floral pattern in shades of pale lilac, rich purple and soft lavender. It is fully lined with repurposed, damson purple corduroy fabric.



It has a total of 5 pockets, 3 on the vintage fabric side and 2 on the corduroy side. The handles are made from strong white webbing and covered on one side with the same lavender and lilac fabric.

Fun, stylish and eco-friendly.

Full listing details with measurements here:
Reversible lavender and lilac vintage fabric tote