Rubbish jewellery

I went to a jewellery making workshop last night. It was rubbish, literally! Held in the downstairs workshop space at the SHRUB Swap and Reuse Co-op and run by Changeworks, the workshop showed us how to make jewellery from inner tubes, which are apparently very difficult to recycle and often end up in landfill sites.

We were shown how to cut the inner tubes (they cut beautifully, specially if you use scissors, slightly more tricky if you use a crafting knife) and were then shown some designs for inspiration. Then we were invited to make our own items!

It was a very sociable event and it was great to have two hours to just play around with ideas and make things. I tried to make two pairs of earrings. The first pair, which you can see in the photo, worked (though they're far from perfect)

and the second pair were a total failure!

It was very nice to work with a new material that I've never used before. Specially finding that it's such a lovely material to work with. However I can't ride a bike (shameful admission for an environmentalist I know!) so I won't have a supply of inner tubes of my own.

If you're in (or close to) Edinburgh and want to try making things from inner tubes, Changeworks have a supply, and if you ask nicely they will probably give you some!

You can read about the previous jewellery making workshop I attended here.