Showing posts with label upcycling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label upcycling. Show all posts

Saturday 11 September 2021

Living More Sustainably in Autumn

During Autumn the daylight becomes shorter and the temperatures are lower. Due to this you may find yourself turning on more lights within your home and keeping the heaters on for longer. It’s typical for us to do that but let’s keep in mind that being sustainable is relevant all year round.

So, here are some tips on exactly that! 
Unplugging
Saving energy is the most common way of staying sustainable. During this time of the year the energy price will go up due to the amount of sources you will end up using to keep warm. Just unplug the things you aren't using, especially the electronic devices. Chargers could be plugged in and still draw power, even if the device isn’t on charge. Bringing up the electric bill and wasting energy. So, we suggest unplugging chargers and all electronics when not in use.





Keeping Cosy

We all want to keep cosy. This can also link into your energy bills, as we tend to gravitate towards putting the heating on as mentioned previously. So, maybe it’s time to start looking into something that would be of use and would also avoid rising bills but also keep you nice and comfortable. Below are just a few examples:

  • Insulation - This isn’t something you usually think about during the warmer weather but can be a big help any time, especially during the colder seasons. Adding insulation to rooms, behind wall heaters and in the ceilings will help with both cold and hot weather. It lowers your energy bill as the temperature within your home will remain the same. So, no need for heaters being constantly on.

  • Thermal Curtains - Thermal curtains, or thicker ones, can help insulate your windows by preventing the cold air from looming in and keeping the warmth inside. Having them drawn closed during the night will provide extra insulation.

  • Door Draft Stoppers - Ever notice how most doors tend to have gaps, especially near the bottom? Well those little areas tend to let out the warm air you want to keep and let in the cold breeze. A door draft stopper is made specifically to be laid at the bottom of the doors to cover up those locations and to keep the chilly air out. I’d highly suggest investing in one. However, if you don’t have the money you could also just use a thick blanket, one you preferably don’t use, and put that near the bottom of the door. It works just as efficiently!  Door Draft Stoppers are Uber sustainable, you could make one like we do with off cuts of old materials, if you're up for the sewing challenge




Garden Work

We know it’s colder out and it seems cosier to sit at home curled up in blankets, with a nice warm drink and watching a movie or two but taking the time to move around daily and getting fresh air will help you during the cooler months. 


If you have a garden, spend some time getting it ready for the upcoming seasons. Autumn is the perfect time to plant many trees. Doing it around this time will give them enough time to develop a root system, deep within the ground, over the winter months, reducing their water needs during spring. 





Composting

If you didn’t know, there are a lot of things that you could use to create compost, especially during Autumn. Those pumpkins you use during Halloween? Instead of just throwing them away, you could roast the seeds and make a delicious snack! Pumpkin seeds are highly nutritious, containing fibre and essential nutrients such as magnesium and zinc. The rest of the pumpkin will compost down quite quickly, however if the pumpkin is on the thick side, then it will take a little longer to break down. So, it’s suggested you cut it into pieces if you want it to rot down quicker or disappear into the bulk of the compost. 


Now, Autumn is known for it’s falling leaves. Most people will add the fallen leaves to their garden chores by raking, bagging and throwing the leaves away. Adding to the waste piles. What most don’t know is that fallen leaves are good for your lawn. Dead leaves are part of the life cycle for plants and soil. Leaves are basically free compost from mother nature! Leaving leaf piles can cause the grass below to die, so it’s recommended to gather the leaves and then distribute them evenly throughout your garden. Leaves help a lot more than you think and can insulate the soil throughout the winter, protecting the life that thrives within the dirt below. 



Gardening


Long-Term Clothing

This is an overall good idea when purchasing clothing. You want to make sure it lasts and can be suitable for other weather types, or just to keep aside for Autumn without having to buy new clothing each year. You could even go through your current clothes that fit the season and upcycle them. Repair them in other words or if you don’t have the experience to do it yourself, you could always bring it into the Madia & Matilda store. We upcycle clothing too, and if you have a specific idea for how you want your clothes to look then we’d be glad to listen. 



Upcycle

Sincerely Madia & Matilda

Sunday 8 August 2021

How to recycle and repurpose beauty packaging:


Over 120 billion units of plastic are produced by and for the beauty industry every year of which 79% are dumped into landfill sites. A recycling revolution is now underway to increase the amount of plastics that are eventually recycled above the current 9%. Not all beauty packaging is inherently recyclable, however, which may cause conventional recycling centres to deny them. All beauty packaging can be disposed of in ways which cause less environmental damage, as no product by nature should be destined for landfill:

Beauty Products

Household recycling centres:

Recycling centres accept clean, empty glass and plastic/PET bottles, aerosols and inherently recyclable (often cardboard) packaging. Plastic lids can be recycled but not plastic pumps or trigger heads. Once clean, pumps may potentially be re-used within other liquid or cream-based products. Be cautious to not pour large amount of liquid or cream cosmetics down the sink, as the chemical/artificial ingredients may pollute water supplies. Instead, be sure to use each product maximally before disposing of it.

 

Recyclable Products

Recycling programmes:

The organisation TerraCycle gas partnered with cosmetic brands (namely Garnier) to provide a free recycling programme for mascara, lipstick, makeup palettes, sheet masks and roll-on deodorants. Empty beauty products can be taken to their allocated drop-off points where they are then re-purposed and/or recycled. Empty bottles of branded products may also be accepted the likes of Kiehls, L’Occitane and The Body Shop, in exchange for recycling rewards, freebies and discounts. TerraCycle has also partnered with the dental hygiene brand Colgate to provide recycling drop-off points for empty toothbrush and toothpastes.

 

A TerraCycle Zero Waste Box can be ordered online and delivered to your door, at a low price. The box is to be filled with clean beauty empties (including:  shampoo bottles and caps, conditioner bottles and caps, hair gel tubes and caps, non-pressurised hair spray bottles, hair paste plastic jars and caps, lip balm tubes, face soap dispensers and tubes, lotion bottles, lotion tubes, lotion dispensers and jars, non-pressurised shaving foam tubes, lip gloss tubes, mascara tubes, eye liner pencils and cases, eye shadow tubes, concealer tubes and sticks) and sent back to the company’s address for recycling.

 

Makeup Products

Upcycling:

There are various creative ways to re-purpose empty packaging. Once clean, empty glass and plastic bottles can be used to create flower jars, jewellery boxes and makeup holders. Empty spray bottles may be filled with water to refresh plants or essential oils for room sprays. Dry, clean mascara wands may also be used again as brow spoolies or an entirely new mascara brush.

Curated Brands 

Sincerely Madia & Matilda

Saturday 15 April 2017

Thread Counts - We need to talk about clothes




Thread Counts Maker’s Day


Thread Counts’ first event extends debate around the exhibition We Need To Talk About Clothes. 

The day is open to anyone interested in fashion and textiles, making (of all kinds), and sustainable and ethical design. 

Tickets are free and include lunch. 


10:00 – Tea and coffee

10:30 – Opening and Thread Counts launch talk (Margaret McDonough)

11:00 – WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT CLOTHES exhibition tour, and panel discussion

Panel
Kate Cole, (Waste Minimisation Officer, Gloucestershire Joint Waste Team)
Jamie Perry (Love Your Clothes) tbc
Alex Ryan (Associate Director of Sustainability, University of Gloucestershire)

12:30 – Lunch (provided)

13:30 – Maker’s Spaces: Mary Jane Baxter introduction

A series of workshops will continue the theme of the value of making, with workshops to 

enable both beginner and intermediate makers to try out their skills.

15:30-16:30 – Madia & Matilda Open debate around both the value of making and sustainability within fashion and textiles.



Thread Counts is a collaboration between Hardwick Gallery, Atelier (Stroud)

and Fashion Design at the University of Gloucestershire for sustainable textile futures.



Happy Easter, hope to see you there!

Sincerely Madia & Matilda

Sunday 19 March 2017

Mothers Day Plans & Gifts








Mother's Day is a treasured opportunity to say thanks to your mum for everything she does for you every day of the year.







Spoil your mum,This mothers day with a cute gift or card from Madia & Matilda.









New Jewellery from the showcase arriving soon! the pictures above are a small taster of what you could get for Mothers Day






Sustainable Shopper. A two tone tote bag that's ideal for the grocery run! Upcycled bag that mums will love.





Create your own afternoon tea party. With our new selection of handcrafted Teas from Lola's Apothecary or if your looking for a day trip to the Cotswold's why not try the Hatton Court Hotel. A lovely treat for the weekend. 




Because your mum deserves the best 


Sincerely Madia & Matilda


Monday 24 October 2016

News - Women of the Year


We felt inspired by Red magazine’s Women of the Year awards and decided to

write up about the women that inspire us here at Madia & Matilda.









The Female Boss

Bianca Miller is a true M & M babe being a real advocate of Madia & Matilda and fulltime female boss. 

You’ll recognise her from winning The Apprentice and her self-titled hosiery business that is

blooming and you can spot her on our Instagram! She’s recently started

stocking her tights in Topshop, congrats Bianca!






The Fashion Muse

Nina Nesbitt is one of our fashion muses, we love her 90s style and playing her

songs on repeat in the office. We also love her Twitter, she’s always posting

her thoughts and cute outfits.













Corinne Bailey Rae

She’s a woman who has inspired us for years, we love her music and her

personal style. She’s got a quirky elegance about her and we dream of seeing

her in M & M one day!















The Activist

Emma Watson, what a woman. As if she hadn’t already cemented her place in

our hearts through Harry Potter, her role in HeForShe will always mean there is

a place for her in our Women of the Year.











We are always talking about sustainability here at Madia and Matilda is some

way or another, so Dame Vivienne Westwood’s spot in our most loved women

is well secured. Seeing her at the Cheltenham Literature Festival talking about

her Climate Revolution campaign completely reinforced our love for the Queen

of Green and Punk.










The Internet’s Big Sister

Whilst she’s also a top female boss, there is no denying that the for younger

generation Zoella is the internet’s big sister. There is also no denying our inner

fan girl that’s released when we watch her Lush hauls.











Megan Gilbride is another big sister to the internet. Over at Wonderful You she

writes about some of the most important topics a girl can read. Mental health –

check, Smear tests – check, girl power – check she’s got the guts to talk about

it all and we love her for that.









We’d love to hear about your women of the year – be them family members or

celebrities, let us know! tweet @MadiaMatilda 




Sincerely Madia & Matilda





Thursday 28 January 2016

Thoughts on value





Have you ever wondered why there is often such a big price difference between your average high street garment and a seemingly similar product from a sustainable brand?




People often say sustainable/eco fashion is too expensive, but is it? Or is fast fashion the costly one?

It depends how you measure it. Yes you can purchase a top for £15- £20 from a big high street brand, wear it a couple of times, throw it away, and as a consumer it hasn’t cost you much. However, it’s easy to forget that garment was made by a human being and the amount of labour and energy that goes into it staggering. For example, to turn a piece of cotton into a garment, first it must be planted, harvested, taken to a factory to be processed and spun into yarn. Then it’s taken to another factory, woven into cloth, sent to a dye mill, dyed and finished. Then it is sold to a manufacturer who must create an original design and pattern, test for fit and performance, cut and make the garment, ship and then market it, all before reaching the customer. People are involved for its whole journey, people who deserve a fair price for their labour. But unfortunately, to produce a garment with all of those processes involved and still sell it for a price we are willing to pay; someone along the line is missing out. 




The sad truth is what we class, as a reasonable, average price, is in fact, artificially low. These cheap prices shouldn’t be the norm; they are wrong, not the more ‘expensive’ eco brands. They are the ones causing costly damage to the earth and to the workers. For fashion to be sustainable it’s not meant to be fast, throw away and cheap. We’ve been trained to buy quantity over quality. Somewhere along the way we’ve lost sight of what is best for us and the environment.
This is where sustainable fashion comes in, as it tries to change perceptions of what is expensive and go back to valuing the right things. 

Sustainable fashion tends to be more expensive due to a number of factors:

Time – As a small brand it takes time to create new and original designs from scratch, develop a pattern and manufacture in a smaller environment.

Fair trade- It is cheaper to employ people abroad to make clothes, where minimum wages are a lot less than here in the UK. For example, an employer in China only has to pay their garment worker 60p an hour, whereas in the UK the minimum wage is £6.70. When buying from a sustainable clothing company that manufactures their clothes in the UK, you know the workers have been paid a fair wage for their labour.

Economies of sale- It’s cheaper to produce mass quantities of clothing if you are a large company. Small scale companies have to pay more to produce smaller quantities.


Quality – Finally, when buying from a sustainable brand, the garments have longer life spans and are well made.






To find out more about our thoughts on value, check out our youtube 



Sincerely Madia & Matilda

e::  info@madiamatilda.co.uk       w::  www.madiamatilda.co.uk/

Wednesday 15 July 2015

Style with Conscience



Our sustainable clothing label, was asked to join the Green Organisation to present the Awards for this year’s event; held at the Empire Casino for the Green Apple Awards. Showing our Resort 16 collection on our team of beautiful models. 

An awards, which recognize the hard work and dedication to green and environmental causes or business schemes.

The Green Apple Environment Awards were launched in 1994 by The Green Organisation and have become well established as one of the most popular environmental campaigns in the world. Their awards are now in their twenty-second year and well established as one of the major environmental recognition schemes, both in the UK and internationally.








In addition to this we have opened a pop up shop in Strouds merrywalks shopping center, starting out as a one month appearance but then extended into two. Not only do we stock Madia & Matilda clothing we also believe in sporting local businesses an enterprises, such as Kastali bespoke storage solutions, Nicola cook handbags, haberdashery and twist lampshades and Sheri's attic antics. Everything is made to order with an alteration service along side, in keeping with our ecofriendly ethos - making your unloved garments loved. Pop in and find us on the highstreet.

37 kingstreet,
Stroud
GL5 3DA






















Sincerely Madia & Matilda

e::  info@madiamatilda.co.uk       w::  www.madiamatilda.co.uk/

Sunday 17 August 2014

Upcycling a pleated skirt

You will need: 

Scissors
Pleated
Ruler
Pins
Tape measure
Iron 

To begin start with laying out your skirt, measure the distance you would like your side split to be. Mark with chalk your split point.









Place the skirt onto a Mannequin or willing model. Measure the distance up from the hem to your desired length. 

Once you have done both sides, lay your skirt on the table and unpick the hem & waistband to as far as u need.  Then cut vertically, from the hem to the waist. 







Turn inside out and sew to the point you marked with the chalk. 

Your skirt should still be inside out, sew down, each side of the split. 

Bar tack across the split opening on the right side up. 










Style as desired, for more details on how to style this skirt see our style tips, available on Tuesday 19.08.14. 

Skirts available on www.madiamatilda.co.uk
Sincerely Madia & Matilda