Upcycling - recycling but better.

Rhonda over at Down to Earth posted this week on recycling and asked others to talk about their efforts. My house, and the majority of it's contents are recycled in some way, in fact it's only in the last year or so that I have ever bought new furniture (although I did buy new whitegoods when I moved into my house as I had given my old ones away a year before when I moved from Sydney to the south coast to board with friends.

My garden beds are recycled from old fences, rabbit cage from an old chook cage that was chucked out on the side of the road, Some of my plants are recycled (cuttings, saplings from other gardeners, even a mature pear tree that someone gave us in return for digging it out of her garden.) About half of my kitchen equipment is recycled, handed down by an aunt when she replaces things, collected at op shops and garage sales etc. Clothes the same. The list could go on....

Probably my favourite example of recycling/upcycling is my wedding. (click on hyperlink to go to photographer's blog) I got married in June and a lot of things were recycled. Candle holders from op shops and markets, vases from a friend at church, ring holder made from an antique prayer book by inserting a secret hole by cutting out with a punch. We also had a friend drive me to the wedding in a recycled boat (he bought it worse for wear and did it up) some friends were taking bets that I would fall in as there wasn't a proper jetty and we had to walk off the front of the boat

The most important upcycled item was my wedding dress. I purchased it over ten years ago (about 9 or so years before I met my husband but anyhow, it was a steal) in a second hand shop as it was beautiful and fit me like it was made for me... It was a bit old in style though - think lace sleeves with frills over your hands, high frilly neck. I unpicked the sleeves and worked out that I could modernise the dress by pulling it to the sides. Lucky for me I have an amazing friend who studied fashion design and together we recreated the dress....
And it was an amazing wedding!

This last photo is a photo of us recycling a shed - It was originally recycled with old corrugated iron roofing, built around an old cottage fireplace with chimney - to use as kitchen for a camp, and storage when camp not on.

It was blown down in storms last year in September (on father's day - Aussies will remember the weather on the south coast) and we rerecycled it.

hello world

I haven't posted on here... gosh in maybe over a year. life has been busy. Hectic. managing nearly fulltime work, parttime study and life is hard, but I have my eye on the prize, graduating at the end of the year. And I've also had another big thing happen this year... I got married.
So last weekend, despite the wet weather as we were staying in camping caves (giant overhangs that stay pretty much permanently dry) we went on our first hike on our own. Love hiking in the Budawangs, on the east coast of Australia, and the fact that it is only just down the road for us is amazing!

On the second night, I was very grateful that there were two caves, as a scout troop arrived to stay the night after we had settled down at Gadarra Point. They were pretty good, and it was funny to hear a family voice coming down the hill towards us (I knew one of the leaders) It was good to have a chat, and they showed us a track to a waterfall that isn't marked on the maps.

Well, I am going to try and post regularly again - once a week minimum and hope to see some of you here again.