3 Easy Ways to Reduce Your Plastic Waste…

Recycling plastic is a fantastic step forward in helping to reduce plastic pollution and even better are reducing plastic use and re-using plastic items. Here’s three easy ways to reduce your plastic waste.

  1. Carry a water bottle. Grab yourself a good looking and practical reusable water bottle, this means that you’re not buying water in single use plastic bottles. A great way to easily reduce your plastic waste and also save some money too!

2. Reuse old plastic containers. Reusing plastic is even better for the environment than recycling. No processing is needed to reuse rather than recycle plastics, so wash thouroghly and then reuse plastic containers once you’ve used their original contents. There are all kinds of ways of re-using plastic containers. Here’s a few ideas: cover old containers with paper labels for organising and storage for small household items. Use them for storing and carrying food, they can be great for packed lunches. lidded plastic food containers are perfect for freezing food portions when you batch cook. Take well washed and lidded plastic containers to the refill store to hold your purchases.

3. Switch to bar soaps, shampoos & conditioners. Bathrooms can produce loads of plastic waste so it’s a great place to find easy reductions. Switch to bar soaps, shampoos and conditioners. I switched from bottle hand soap, body wash, shampoo and conditioner and have saved over 70 plastic bottles a year from my bathroom alone!

I hope this ideas help and inspire you to reduce you plastic waste a little bit.

Thanks & have a great week!

Sarah x

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Art Deco – WHAT’S THE STORY?

Art Deco – it was a brave new look for a brave new world. As I sit here in summer 2022 embracing our ‘new normal’ and bracing myself for ‘The Roaring Twenties – The Re-do’, I’m instantly inspired to look back to the original and the design movement that redefined everything, from dinner plates to dancing frocks and back again. 1920s swept in the Art Deco design movment and in an instant it swept away all the tradition that had gone before and by crikey was everybody ready. After years of war, truma and loss followed by the Flu pandemic of 1918 the world needed a brake – enough was enough, so many had lost their lives and youths to the war and the flu and now they were going to live a little…..

Art Deco was THE thing that changed every thing. I always find the name a little strange: Arts Decoratif, to give it’s full title. It came out of France and means Decorative Arts and yet it is less decorative and fussy than it’s predecesor Art Nouveau (meaning New Arts).

Anyway, along came Art Deco and changed the world. It represented an un-fussy, elegant, sometimes simple and sometimes elaborate style. Featuring geometric shapes and stong lines it has a purity and simplicity which tells of it’s practicallity. It can be even be argued that it also had a role in the Rights of Women movement. Art Deco design removed the focus of the creation of a domestic enviroment from a purely female role and resposibility and made it much more gender neutral. Art Deco clothing design was a massive departure from the restrictive and inconvenient dress of the preceding eras, it clearly resulted in much more practical clothing styles for women, meaning thay could take part in many activities with increased freedom of movement – no small progress!

And it was fun! As the designs was simplified the materials and finishes became much more important and luxe. If you were able to go dancing, you could wear a flapper dress and dance the Charleston (and who doesn’t love THAT!)

And, even if you had a family to look after and your flapper days were behind you, Art deco could still bring a hint of modern glamour into your world, in the form of a Clarice Cliff or Suzie Copper teaset!

Art Deco Clarice Cliff tea set

The Art Deco design movement was so highly influential on our lives that it is still impacting us today and I love the beauty and purity of it!

You can easily add a a sprinkle of Art Deco style to your home or wardrobe. Here’s a couple of high style Art Deco ideas!

I often use genuine Art Deco beads dating from the 1920s & 1930s to create reclrecaimed and recycled vintage bead earrings for my eco-friendly range of jewellery, so if you’re an Art Deco fan then come and take a look at my Art Deco earring collection

All in all, the Art Deco movment represented a huge leap forward in our lives, it transitioned us from traditional to modern and we’re still feeling those changes today! The design influence of the Art Deco movement has been so far reaching and impactful. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little foray into the Art Deco world…

Thanks & have a lovely day

Sarah x

PS: This blog contains affiliate some links, so if you purchase through them we get a (very) small comission which helps support the blog and pay our bills, so thank you for your support!

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Check Out Our New Jane Austen x Graffiti Range!

So, along with my love of the Bronte Sisters, i’m also a massive fan of Jane Austen and her work. It took me a few reads to get beyond the constraints of the language and hear her voice. Cricky what a voice – she’s very sharp and really, really funny. That lady really did have and eye for humanity and all it’s foolishness and quirks! Her words really inspire me and I’ve been feeling creative, so I decided to meld her amazing ideas with an art movement that, in my opinion, really represents just how creative, subversive and progressive she was. Welcome to our new Jane Austen X Graffiti range…..

I hope you enjoy the new Jane Austen X Graffiti gifts and clothing range and if you’re looking for a good read do check out Jane Austen’s books!

Have a great week & thanks for reading!

Sarah x

P.S. This blog contains some affiliate links and if you click on them and purchse, we recieve a (very) small commission, which helps support the blog and pay our bills. So, thank you for your support!

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Japan – you are always on my mind.

Japan, it’s culture, place and people facinate Johnny and I and we’d love to visit. But, we live on the other side of the world, in Yorkshire, so it’ll need a lot of saving up and take some time to get there. Despite the difference in languages, culture and the great physical distances, I love that there are also similarities. Yorkshire and Japan a both hilly and cold at times, tea drinking has big place in our hearts and Kintsugi – the Japanese method of repair that creates beauty from damage, feels very akin to the Yorkshire ‘make the best of it’ spirit. To bring a little of Japan to Yorkshire Johnny & I like to visit Japancentre.com – they delivery fantastic Japanese treats worldwide!

So it’s no suprise that the facintion with Japan has inspired Johnny to explore that theme in his art. He’s done several pieces, which explore facets of Japanese culture and our relationship with it, as observers. We’ve turned the original handpainted and drawn pieces into digital form and they’re available as t-shirts, hoodies, and art prints.

Come and check out the Japanese inspired art and clothing at johnnyinthe56.com

We hope you enjoy the Japanese inspired art & clothes.

Thanks & have a fantastic day

Sarah & Johnny

PS: After I wrote this blog piece, we were talking about it, which inspired Johnny to re-visit the Japanese Sumo wrestlers and he’s done another piece on them. Check out his instagram feed for up to the minute updates on it’s progress and all his artwork.

PPS: This blog contains affiliate some links, so if you purchase through them we get a small comission which helps support the blog and pay our bills, so thank you for your support!

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Charlotte Bronte’s Little Books ….

Another of Charlotte’s miniature books has been returned to it’s home at the Bronte Parsonage and to celebrate, this wonderful event, I decided to focus on ‘Charlotte’s tiny books’.

The work of the Bronte sisters has had a massive impact on the world and is beloved by many. Looking back at them today, we understand what a winding path they all took towards being the famous authors that they were to become. They all travelled and taught, even tried to start a school and when finally Charlotte plucked up the courage to publish some of their work, Emily refused. Indeed the book of poetry, once published, was not an instant success – with only a few copies being sold. It’s clear, that very often and for a long time it was not at all obvious, that the huge and enduring literary success they acheived was to be their destination! However, a look at their early works shows us that they had a passion for literature well beyond the norm!

It was thanks to their ‘papa’ – Patrick Bronte that all the Bronte children were taught to read and write. He encouraged them to read many things (including some that would have been considered inappropriate for young girls, at the time). He felt it was vital for them to be well read and well informed young people, especially the girls who would need to go out into the world and make their own way and earn their own livings.

It’s but a small step from reading to writing and before long Branwell, Charlotte, Emily and Anne had all taken it. As children and young people they wrote stories, plays, poems and more, some of which survives today. The most beguiling of the ‘Bronte Juvenilia ‘ as their childhood efforts are collectively known, are the ‘tiny books’ or ‘miniature manuscripts’. The earliest is a joint effort by Branwell and Charlotte and dates to 1829 and is their version of the popular periodical Blackwoods Magazine. We don’t know how many they produced.There are several by Charlotte that are held by the British Library and the Bronte Parsonage and to my reckoning the are now 11 that we know of. Earlier this year one popped up at auction in New York and thanks to the help of the Friends of the National Libraries (FNL), a UK charity devoted to saving the nation’s written and printed heritage, it was aquired by the Bronte Parsonage and I cann’t wait to go and visit it!

Some of Charlotte Bronte’s tiny books.

These incredible tiny books are handmade, written and illustrated, mostly by Charlotte. They measure around 4 inches / 10 cm tall and the writing is so tiny, that most adults struggle to read it! They’re clearly a labour of love and contain articles, adverts, poems and stories that the Bronte children created, around a set of toy soldiers that Patrick had given Branwell for his birthday when he was 9 years old. Over the next few years the Bronte children created characters and a whole intricate world for the toy soldiers and these feature in the tiny books. It’s believed that some of the tiny books were gifts between the siblings and also for the soldiers and they are indeed the gift that keeps giving!

Thank you for reading & have a great week!

Sarah X

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