Workshops At The Community Reuse Shop

We run classes to inspire customers to reuse items of furniture that may not fit in with their decor but are still useful. The classes are split over 3 weeks and start with something small, such as a picture frame – this enables participants to become familiar with the process and products used. The second week is a larger item, such as a kitchen chair or small side table & the third class shows how to decoupage and or apply the protective wax.

A customer donated a large quantity of jewellery making items as she was wrapping up her hobby to start full time employment. Rather than try to sell these items, we had a volunteer already working with us who was keen to run a workshop to show people how easy it is to make your own jewellery. We had 8 eager participants who thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and left with several pairs of earrings each and kits to enable them to make more at home.

Gail & Mary run their own business called Finishing Touches and offered to do a workshop for us to show people how easy and cost effective it is to change the colour and/or purpose of items to fit in with their household. The ladies pre-select an item to use and order the fabric ahead of time. Workshop attendees are hands on from the start, helping to strip the item back to the bare bones. They are then shown how to use the old fabric as a template for the new covering and then how to secure it. The off cuts of the fabric are then turned into scatter cushions ensuring there is no waste. The items are then available to buy in our showroom.

This workshop was run just before Christmas to encourage people to use what they have at home to create new Christmas decorations. We used tinsel wrapped rings that had been donated and fabric from duvet covers, sheets etc to show that you can use items you thought had no use anymore to produce something far more eye catching than you are able to buy in a shop. The rings can then be stripped and redone using colours to suit each season.

We often get lots of bits of wool donated that people are unsure what to do with, we also showed participants how easy it is to unravel an old woollen jumper and use the wool from it. The looms were made by one of our staff from off cuts of wood we had in our workshop. The blankets we made were fairly small as they are time consuming and can give you sore fingers, but the principals are the same for any size.