Packing for De bePARKte Oplage

Today I prepared for De bePARKte Oplage in Antwerp, which will take place tomorrow (23rd of September) in Park Spoor Noord. I am looking forward to a special day, with lots of creative people, beautifully crafted items and many visitors, looking for unique products.

I will sell my purses, bags and pouches, my diy kits for creating your own cross stitch monogram tags, small gift boxes and bag tags. All made of tetrapack.

Hope to see you there!

Hoera is selling on crafts market in Antwerp

Some good news: I will be selling my upcycled purses and pouches on a crafts market in Antwerp on the 23rd of September. It is called De bePARKte Oplage, because it takes place in a park, in the north of Antwerp, and all items that are sold there are made in small quantities.

So everything that is sold there, is unique and handmade. The market is in a shelter, so no worries about rain. I'm looking forward to it, and would feel honored if you would pass by to say hello!

Marjan

New collection of upcycled bags and purses

I started walking around with my upcycled bag (see my previous post 'Upcycked bag made of tetrapack' , and got so many enthousiastic reactions (thanks to all!) This encouraged me to make more upcycled bags,  not only bags with the print on the outside, like the bag on the left, but also with the silver colored side of the tetra pack on the outside. Personally these are my favorite :) If you are interested to have such a bag, feel free to visit my Etsy shop, or contact me (marjan[underscore]geerts[at]hotmail[dot]com) for a custom made upcycled bag or purse.

Upcycled bag made of tetra

A while ago I pinned a nice upcycled bag on Pinterest, that I found on destinationweddingstore. I found that is was repinned immediately by other pinners. I adored this bag as well, and also the idea to create a bag out of tetra myself, because it is a durable and waterproof material. Last week I started this DIY project, and made myself a bag out of milk packs.

The result is pretty pretty: It is a small square bag with two handles, which can contain my wallet, phone, keys and agenda and more small stuff. I added one of my upcycled tags to one of the handels, to give it a personal touch. For my sewing machine, it was quite a heavy job: I broke two needles while making this bag, but it was definitely worth the effort.

I have a feeling that this is the first, but certainly not the last bag that I will make out of tetra. This first experiment will certainly be followed by other bags, purses, pouches and boxes. To be continued....

Collecting tetrapacks

A while ago, I started asking family and friends to collect tetra for me. The only way to create a stock, and have a backup to upcycle large quantities of tags or boxes, is to start collecting this material. 

A few months before, I started searching for tetra in large quantities, the kind of material that professional painters used to lay on the floor, to protect it against paint, or chalk, when they're renovating a building. I read somewhere that they use misprints from the tetra industries, but I couldn't find those rolls in the big painting wholesale shops in Antwerp and surroundings. I found out that it is forbidden to sell and use this material with the original prints in the painting branch, because of copyrights. The only tetra that I could find was tetra in white or brown, which produced especially for the painting branch. So this has nothing to do with repurposing, reusing or upcycling!

So the only way to do some proper upcycling, is to use juice and milk packs that come from peoples fridge. Now that I asked my family and friends to help me: I get new packs every week, so my collection starts to grow. 

So this is a nice moment to ask all of you: if you live in the Antwerp region, you want to spent less on your PMD bags (special garbage bags for plastic and metal packaging, that cost a fortune) and you love upcycling, please comment on this post, and we will find a way to get your empty tetrapacks to my place.

The story of Hoera

Hoera! Today I created my 'About Hoera' page on Etsy: this is a sneak peek into the world of Hoera's webshop. So if you're curious to know how I started this shop, why it's called Hoera and what is happening in my home 'studio' (not much bigger then my kitchen table), feel free to take a look. Hope you like it!

Grandma's upcycled melon seed necklace

One of the things I learned from my grandma: creating a melon seed necklace. It might be one of my first experiences with re/upcycling. In fact, it is a very easy thing to do, with a very nice result, which I like to share with you: 

1. Buy a Galia melon
2. Cut it in pieces 
3. Remove the seeds
4. Wash them in water
5. Dry the melon seeds on a paper towel
6. Use thread and a needle to tack them up to a beautiful natural necklace.
7. Enjoy! (and don't forget to eat your melon)

Note: add some other natural colored beats, if one melon doesn't give you enough seeds for a long necklace!