The Moseley Swap Shop

One man's trash is another man's treasure!

At The Moseley Swap Shop

Have u got anything you don't want? Or do you just fancy some new stuff for FREE? Then the Moseley Swap Shop is the place for you! Brought to Moseley by FOEcycle and REUSED. Don't miss first Swap Shop February the 27^th, at the Prince of Wales. It'll open at 12pm and finish around 5pm and will be appearing at The Prince of Wales every 4^th Saturday of the month!

Come along maybe after a visit to the Moseley Farmers Market, pop in to The Prince of Wales to get out of the cold and there you will find books, clothes, kitchen stuff, DVDs, Computer games, Ornaments, and anything you bring along to add! All for FREE This stall is entirely dependant on you getting involved, so come down and participate! Based on the online yahoo group Freecycle (now Freegle). www.IloveFreegle.org which allows you to place ads to get rid of things you don't need and respond to ads to get things you do, without money getting involved, well worth a look. The Moseley Swap Shop is your local alternative!

We all know about the 3R's, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, this is a great way to achieve all 3 of them on a Saturday afternoon in the pub and leave with some nice stuff! The stall will also be taking donations for Birmingham Friends Of The Earth and have promotional information available about the activities of BFOE in Birmingham, and other information about what Green alternative stuff is going on in Birmingham and how you can get involved if you're interested.

So don't miss out on the 27th of Feb because you won't be disappointed!

If you have any inquires please email me at fisher_woman@live.co.uk

Happily Ever Crafter

The tale of Its a wrap continued...

On the 3rd Monday of the month at 6.30pm at Birmingham Friends of the Earth's warehouse Allison St, B5 5TH, There will be a craft group! Led by Becks and Beth, it will cover loads of different ways of making things over the weeks.

The first session will be Recycled Craft! on Monday the 15th of February we will be looking at what can be made out of a juice cartons for example wallets, decorations, jewellery, baskets etc. Please bring juice cartons if you have any lying around, we have got some, but more is always better!

So.... please come along for tea and craft and do get in touch if you have any talent, maybe you would like to lead a work shop or requests, for a workshop you would like us to run any suggestions welcome! you can email us at reused.it@gmail.com

Its a wrap: Knot just for Christmas

Another fun night was had at our second It’s a wrap crafting night on the 23rd November. We were a little squashed in the front resourses room at the Warehouse, but managed to move around the tables to make everyone comfortable.

We had less sewing machines than we had at our last group so some made bags on the machines, whilst others made reusable gift tags made with recycled felt made from plastic bottles. Roger, our token man, but willing crafter made bottle bags out of the sleeves of donated shirts.

A lot of chat and discussion was shared over the sewing, with Denise from COW (Creative Open workshops) talking about how she finger crochets with plarn, yarn made out of plastic bags, while Beth showed us a bag she had crocheted out of plastic barrier tape she collected together.

I also mentioned what I had spotted that week when walking past Lush I was surprised to discover this window display. Had they heard about Its a wrap and taken, but no, after looking in their promotional paper its a national Lush offering: Knot just for Christmas, Go Lush!

Knot for Christmas is a gift wrap service using vintage scarves to wrap their products in, more info is on their web page about this knot wrapping service. I have also seen this furoshiki wrapping and have got some lovely furoshiki Christmas and other wraps from my favourite folksy seller myfuroshiki which will be for sale at our Friends of the Earth Green Christmas Fair in Moseley on the 19th December, so come along and see what we have on offer.

Its a wrap had another productive night and here are some of the great bags and recycled gift tags that were made on the night. All of these will be available at the Green Fair in Moseley on the 19th December. If you want to come along and join in the fun, the next session is on the 14th December, hopefully see you there.

Its a wrap, 9th November

Thanks for all the people that came along to the first It's a wrap crafting group, here is a selection of what was created:

Lots of people turned up with their sewing machines, including the C.O.W. Girls. I brought along a few items we could make including wine bag, draw string bags, a CD/DVD wrap and a furoshiki wraps.

My friend had donated some fascinators, which distracted the everyone at first, as you can see!

I then demonstrated the different wraps (did feel a bit like a person on QVC or one of those stalls at the market that demonstrate the veg cutting devices and someone did shout out "Do we get a free knife if we watch it all the way through!)

And then we all dived in to chose our material and get going.



We also had some lovely cakes and flapjacks to help us along the way.

So please come along to our next It's a wrap group, which will be a drop in from 6.00 pm onwards:

• 23rd November
  
• 14th December
  

And at the Christmas Market in Moseley CDT on 19th December all you lovely peeps will be able to buy the "It's a wrap" produce.

Hopefully see you soon!

Its a wrap: Birmingham Friends of the Earth get stitched up

Lets be honest, wrapping gifts in paper, it’s all about the eye candy and not much about the environment. In the UK, we waste stacks of trees and resources with glitzy paper for a 20 second fix. It is estimated by Waste online that over Christmas as much as 83 square km of wrapping paper will end up in UK rubbish bins, enough to cover an area larger than Guernsey and the total waste wrapping paper the UK produces over Christmas could stretch to the moon if each sheet was laid end to end.

And part of the problem is the most popular wrapping paper cannot be recycled and ends up in landfill is often dyed, laminated and contains non-paper additives such as gold and silver coloured shapes or glitter which cannot be recycled. This means paper is either dumped in the bin or, worse, put in the recycling bin, which will mean the whole lot is contaminated and has to go to landfill.

So whats this got to do with Birmingham Friends of the Earth?
We want to promote the alternative wrapping that is available, and on the 9th of November will be having its first group of crafters coming together to make creative wrappings to get people to think differently about wrapping paper and also make items that will be showcased and available for sale at our Christmas fare on the 19th December and hopefully will raise some money to get allow great campaigning around the city. Contact Joe Peacock on 0121 632 6909 or email http://www.blogger.com/campaigns@birminghamfoe.org.uk.

So here are some of the things the crafters will be making for alternative wrapping paper, (if you have other ideas, please share them as comments):

Furoshiki, which is a Eastern tradition of wrapping using material, which I discovered after watching recycle now. See myfuroshiki for the real thing, photographed is one of her great prints and will have some of their great products available on the stall on the 19th December. Also I square scarves from charity shops can do the job as well.

Material gift bags that can be used and used again, which can be made over from left over material.


CD/DVD material present bags. This one is from Thailand and can be used again and again.

Use newspaper or magazines for wrapping. Recently I have had lots of success with using adverts in womens magazines, they spend so much on the creative, such as the perfume adverts, its always nice to show them off. Use string or ribbon to wrap them up and you can use them again.

If you cant make it on the 9th November, you can still help out by contributing:

• Any scrap, Christmassy, material we can use. Anything from old curtains, to off cuts, nice duvet covers or pillow cases picked up at a charity shop.
• Scarves that are square shape or can be altered to fit.
• Thread, ribbon and sew on decorations.

Please drop these off at the Warehouse and we will see what our creative people can do.

And start thinking about how you can reduce, reuse and recycle at Christmas!