Recycled

We can make beautiful things out of scraps and pieces of trash. I was getting very creative with my recycled hat last month for my first MIMC millinery contest. I was pretty satisfied with my Upside Down Flower Pot design, even though I didn’t win anything this year. Everything on that hat was found in my scrap box except for the thread and wire. I am happy to report that all my scraps can be housed into one big box. Unless I went out and bought new “Old” junk to create my hat, I felt like I would be doing more harm than good. I decided to make this a true recycling challenge rather than focusing on the win. I did not buy anything new for this project.

The flowers were made out of upholstery sample packs I salvaged from the local shop. I made a paper mache fascinator from a sheet of my 2019 calendar for the flower pot, three different scrap sinamay pieces for the base button, left over veil trim for the potting mix, and my weekly grocery ad for the paper butterflies. The hat would have been lighter if I didn’t use recycled materials, but it can still sit securely on the head.

My Upside Down hat isn’t back yet from Melbourne, but I was able to take some nice shots of the piece before it left and happy that spending extra time engineering the wires resulted in a very sturdy piece for international travel.

A side view of the Upside Down head piece.