Bread & Roses Handcrafts

PACKAGING

We've tried to minimise our eco footprint with our packaging.
We use:

biodegradable mailing bags

Plastic free padded envelopes

stamped card boxes, jewellery cards and tags

Leather

We buy our leather in bags of small offcuts from an atelier in Latvia. The mixed scrap that we receive is seen by many as too small and awkward to do much with, but we see the beauty and value in the materials, and make sure that when we're finished, the scrap really is scrap this time! We believe that when so much time, labour and energy has gone into a material, it really should be used to its fullest. Which brings us to....

Denim

The denim we use comes from, well, everywhere! If a friend, family member, long lost cousin or the postman had a pair of jeans they feel is beyond repair- we want to know about it! If the local charity shop is given a denim jacket that is too damaged to sell- we will gladly give a donation for it!
You see, a pair of jeans has one of the biggest carbon and water footprints of any clothing, and while we're not able to undo that, we can keep the fabric in use and out of landfill for a little longer, (while not using freshly made materials for our own work, of course!)

Recycled 'Jersey Yarn'

The jersey yarn used in our plant cosies and jewellery is called Hoooked Zpagetti, and it is 100% recycled material. The company actually started from a desire to tackle the waste of the fashion industry, and Zpagetti is made in Portugal from the waste of Europe's fashion textile factories. You can find more information on their processes and ethos on the Hoooked website. As with the leather scraps, we love the unpredictable patterns and colours that arrive when we put in an order!

A Note on using recycled materials...

One feature of a lot of these recycled materials is what some may call flaws, but we prefer to call 'inconsistencies'! Meaning there may be scars on the leather, varying thicknesses in a length of jersey yarn and so on. We don't think these inconsistencies are a negative thing, but rather they are reminders that this material had another life or was on another path, and now has been saved from landfill to become something beautiful instead. We love our little inconsistencies and we hope you do too!