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Plastic Free Craft Campaign – In Conversation with Elly Platt

Elly Platt is a costume maker and vintage clothing enthusiast who lives in London. Elly started her sustainable and ethical fashion blog, Take It Up Wear It Out, to showcase stylish and creative alternatives to fast fashion. When she’s not refashioning or mending clothes, Elly is learning new craft skills in order to furnish her home without buying anything new. We asked her to share her thoughts on our #plasticfreecraft campaign. “It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that sewing [...]

Red Shoe Polish Boots Transformation!

By Holly by Heart I own shoe polish. A lot of it! Not many people I know do, which is a shame as shoe polish is amazing! I love shoes and boots! I’ve often had boots reheeled or repaired. Polishing shoes means that they last longer and stay looking newer for longer. But shoe polish also has other uses! I bought these amazing red clarks boots from a charity shops before Christmas for £8. They’re a perfect fit and are so [...]

The Art of Mending

Showcasing craft, as we do here at NSN Magazine, is often a unique and varied job. We get articles, expertise, samples, and books shared with us. A bumper crop becomes a chance to discover, spark new ideas, and experiment. When a book arrives with an original title containing an archaic term – like ‘mending’ – we immediately want to leaf through it, take in its contents, and examine the photos. Mending Mattersby Katrina Rodabaugh is one of those books. The visual layout is [...]

Practical Experiments in Textile Architecture. Anni Albers at the Tate Modern

Make sure you don’t miss the Anni Albers exhibition, which is on display in the Tate Modern’s spacious exhibition halls. Here at NSN Magazine, when we showcase activities like weaving, we enjoy sharing the unique and personal interpretations, how the creations are designed to be used, and the choice of yarns. Indeed, weaving is one of the oldest craft activities, often relegated to the female domain. For decades, this skilled practice was confined to passionate female weavers who defied modernity and [...]

Elvis & Kresse: Transforming Used Fire-hoses Into a Range of Luxury Accessories

For over the last 13 years Elvis & Kresse have saved all of London’s fire-hoses, transforming them into a range of luxury accessories and donating 50% of the profits to The Fire Fighters Charity. From the first day they had a unique DNA: rescue, transform, donate. In 2005 Elvis & Kresse had a chance meeting with the London Fire Brigade and had a very emotional response to their damaged, decommissioned fire-hose. Kresse saw it as too heroic and too beautiful for [...]

How to Declutter the Eco-Friendly Way

Recycle vs. Throwing Away There are multiple ways to recycle the household items you no longer use rather than just dumping them in the trash. To keep electronics from ending up in the dump, you have a few options. First, you can recycle them. Many nonprofits and communities offer opportunities to recycle electronics, or you can visit www.call2recycle.org to find a drop-off location near you. You can also donate your electronic or gadget to a local nonprofit or charity, or you [...]

Mud & Bloom: Seasonal Nature Crafts and Gardening Activities

Mud & Bloom is a monthly subscription box delivering seasonal nature crafts and gardening activities to your door. Each box contains everything you need for four seasonal growing and craft activities along with instructions, nature news and games to teach children about the seasons, plants, insects, birds, soil and rainfall. The boxes have been created for 3-8 year old’s by qualified teachers and support the national curriculum with influence from Forest School, Steiner and Montessori education. The boxes have been developed with the busy parent [...]

Katrina Rodabaugh: Artist, Writer, and Crafter Working Across Disciplines to Explore Environmental and Social Issues Through Traditional Craft Techniques

Katrina Rodabaugh is an artist, writer, and crafter working across disciplines to explore environmental and social issues through traditional craft techniques. Mostly, she rethinks the relationship between fiber art, sustainability, and slow fashion. Since August 2013 she’s been on a fashion fast, Make Thrift Mend, to focus on mending, plant dyes, and prioritizing handmade or secondhand garments instead of buying new clothing. She also grows, forages, and harvests dye plants near her farmhouse in the Hudson Valley. Her work [...]

Pathcarvers: An Organisation that Promotes the Beneficial Aspects of Craft and the Creative Arts

Pathcarvers is an organisation that promotes the beneficial aspects of craft and the creative arts, particularly to those who find access difficult. We also support artisans who would like to make a career from their craft. We are based in Birmingham, but we are a burgeoning international movement, with a loose collective that is working hard to make the world a better, more beautiful, and more creative place. Pathcarvers is feature in the Winter Issue 2018. The latest issue of the [...]

Mouse in the House: Created From Fragments of Stuff and Memories

Mouse in the House is the product of my noisy brain and an overactive imagination. The ever-growing mischief of mice reside behind the house walls and are collectors of treasure, eaters of cheese, painstakingly created from fragments of stuff and memories, scraps of fabric, pieces of broken things, lost buttons and forgotten moments… I’ve always had a fascination with stories, histories, early stop-frame animations and I collect profusely. I work with salvaged fragments of fabric, paper, wood and metal, with [...]