Around my place, it’s always “make something time” in this season, so my interest was piqued by an email from Greenpeace telling me 2-10 December is Make Smthng Week. So it’s official; it’s not just me!
In their words, Make Smthng Week is “an international festival of making, challenging our consumerist culture that has cut quality time spent with family and friends and replaced skills and resourcefulness with shopping. Together, we would like to step out of this wasteful overconsumption and give our beautiful Earth a break.” It is embracing the culture of repairing and upcycling, taking time to do something yourself, making the effort to re-use something already created. It’s about sharing, buying secondhand, lending and borrowing.
Making something helps you appreciate the work that goes into it (and makes you wonder how we can buy so much for so little) which brings a respect for quality and a reluctance for waste.
Good news for me, Make Smthng Week began with another Around the Table craft morning. These mornings are all about soaking up some beauty while enjoying homemade treats and lovely coffee (yes, I’m putting this first!). There is always a selection of crafts, and our hostess includes supplies that are free: bits and scraps from your stash; things you pick up on a lovely walk; items you’d normally just throw away. The angels we folded on Saturday were old books.
Images cut from napkins upcycle a plain candle.
And here’s one I did at home:
These little trees, or similar simple Christmas decorations, are great for using up bits of fabric, yarn and other trinkets (and old screws!). These ones have cloves inside, so they give off a lovely festive scent. They finish with a very do-able bit of hand sewing, and it was good to have a reason to pause; I’d sit beside my huge back window – for the light – and keep an eye to all the birds feeding in the plum tree right outside. It was a good moment to breathe.
Other plans for Make Smthng Week include a visit to a local craft fair, where we picked up some beautiful things made by other folk, and my favourite market ever, the Dublin Flea Christmas Market, a treasure trove of vintage and design, the quirky, the amazing.
If you are interested in more about Make Smthng Week, look here.
kennedy street 