About two weeks ago Kim from Trashy Crafter
contacted me to tell me about her awesome bracelets made from recycled
books and to ask me if I wanted to do a review for them, how could I resist, I
love book jewelry and I had never heard or seen anything like it plus the
bracelets are gorgeous. The beads you see on the picture above are made from
pages of books that were going to be thrown away, but instead were made in to bracelets;
how awesome is that. Kim doesn't only make bracelets she also makes necklaces
and earrings. She was nice enough to send me the story of how and what inspired
her to start her shop; she also sent me some awesome pictures of the process of
making these awesome jewelry.
Trashy Crafter's Shop Story!
Trashy
Crafter creates handmade recycled book jewelry from damaged and outdated
children’s books, novels, sheet music and maps.
It all started 5 years ago when my Mom Helen and I were at a local
thrift store, we noticed them throwing away 100’s of damaged and outdated
books, it was heart breaking, so we gathered as many as we could, took them
home and tried to think of how to recycle them so they could be enjoyed rather
than go sit in a landfill. It took some
time to think of it, but I remembered in my 3rd grade class my
teacher Mrs. Bryant taught us how to roll paper beads from magazines. For some reason that really stuck in my head,
even though it was 20 something years later, I decided to give it a try, and
that was how Trashy Crafter was born.
Mom
and I started rolling the paper beads together at night at our kitchen table,
and today it has evolved into a wonderful small business we take so much pride
in. We take damaged books and turn them
into beautiful one of a kind handmade, recycled book jewelry people can
treasure forever, you always have a book you loved as a child that your Mom,
Teacher, Grandma, Sister or Librarian read to you, or perhaps one you read in high
school or college. Trashy Crafter can
take the damaged books and make them into bracelets, necklaces, earrings and
lanyards that you can wear each day and have a precious memory right with you,
we say “Don't Just Read It, Wear It”. And to us, it’s the best of both worlds,
helping the environment by recycling something beautiful that was just going to
be thrown in the trash, and giving people the gift of wearing their most
treasured memories from books they love, we'd say it’s a win win!
The
Trashy Crafter team is made of me (Kim) my Mom Helen, my boyfriend of 8 years
Dave and a few friends that help me from time to time. We love Trashy Crafter, and to be honest it
has become something bigger than us, the number of stories we get from folks
who wear our jewelry is so touching. We've had people contact us to make custom
jewelry for librarians or teachers who are retiring, Mom’s who are pregnant and
expecting their first child, anniversary gifts for wives, birthday gifts for
daughters or Moms, and have had so many people tell us that this is the perfect
gift for someone that has everything, it’s so meaningful and unique!
Within out Etsy shop at any given time we have
about 50 or more books turned into jewelry, you can simply search for a title
of a book you would like in our shop search bar, if we don’t have it, no need
to fear, just send us a message, we do 100’s of custom orders a year. Custom orders are fantastic if you have a
certain book you would like turned into jewelry, we can use the book you own or
can order a heavily used copy on Amazon.com and use that to make it.
For
the past few years we had done such a wonderful job of using all of the book
pages and turning them into beads, but I always felt so horrible for throwing
away the hard covers of books (often times they have such beautiful
illustrations on them), so finally it hit me, why not turn them into stud
earrings! The recycled book cover stud
earrings are our newest item, and let me tell you they are wonderful! They are very light weight, colorful, fun,
one of a kind (made from the actual book covers of books) and it’s a great
conversation starter. I have been
wearing mine for the past 3 months testing them out, and have gotten so many
compliments, I wear them every day!
We
also recently started a damaged children book donation program, as well as a
broken jewelry program. If you are a
Teacher, Mom or Librarian that has damaged children's book that have been highly
loved by your kids, but are no longer able to be read because they are ripped,
missing page or scribbled in you can ship them to us and will recycle them into
paper bead jewelry. We have a list of
books we are in need of, and if any of those are titles you have, you can ship
them to us, and when you can get us 15 used book we give you a free trashy
crafter bracelet set! We also collect
broken beaded necklaces and bracelets from folks around the world to reuse in
our jewelry. If you are at all
interested you can send us an email at trashycrafter@gmail.com
I received my bracelet a couple of
days ago and I absolutely LOVED it! The bracelet I chose is made from a Wizard
of Oz book that was recycled! The bracelet is beautiful, I love everything about it and the fact that is
made from books that were going to be thrown away makes it even more special. I
love what Kim and her mother decided to do it’s truly an amazing thing! Kim
being the amazing person she is has been kind enough to give all my followers 15% off your purchase for a whole month starting today! Just use the code "booklover" at check out at her Trashy Crafter Etsy Shop . I
really hope all my followers take advantage of this awesome discount for this
beautiful jewelry!
-SandraTheBookWorm
