A Welly Good Idea

Today I dropped into Raspberry Rascals, a gorgeous boutique in Bury St Edmunds, which sells pre-loved clothing for children.

It's such a beautiful shop and thanks to the quality of well chosen stock, it's hard to tell that the range of clothing, books and toys is mainly second-hand.




I normally spend ages in the little boutique browsing for bargains for the children, but today's visit wasn't to shop, it was to drop off a pair of old wellies for a Welly Swap event that's taking place next week.



The owner, Heather Bream, is a huge supporter of recycling and has organised the Free Welly Swap to enable customers to drop off old wellies that are still in a wearable condition and to take another pair if they find a size that is suitable. If it is a real success, she will continue the idea throughout the rest of the year too.



The idea came from a discussion we had about a month ago. Heather had been pondering how she could support Recycle Week and do something helpful for the local community. When she asked if I had any bright ideas, I agreed to get my brain into gear and have a ponder too.

Then out of the blue came a wonderful comment from fellow blogger, CompostWoman, who provided inspiration on a blogpost that I'd published about my old wellington boots. She made reference to Welly and Jelly libraries that allowed parents in Herefordshire to swap items that their children had outgrown.

Heather loved this idea and is now excited about launching her own welly exchange next week and in doing so will hopefully save lots of boots from landfill...

... or at the very least protect them from gardening enthusiasts like me reusing them as plant-pots.

So thanks to CompostWoman, Raspberry Rascals and the power of talking rubbish. As a result of sharing great ideas, here's another opportunity that will hopefully help the local community waste even less next week.

For those who live in Bury St Edmunds, Raspberry Rascals is located on Langton Place, just off Hatter Street. The shop is open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. More information can be found at www.raspberryrascals.co.uk.


______________________________________________________

Are any of your local shops doing anything to support Recycle Week? It's always worth asking around, and if you find out anything exciting I'd love to know the gossip. You might even be able to help them with ideas. Who knows what can happen when like-minded folk get together.

______________________________________________________
Updated with new photos 20:35, 20/06/09

My Trashy Update!

What a couple of jewels I've discovered this weekend. Having spent the last few weeks indoors at my computer, it was a true delight to go out and play. And look what I've found.

My first discovery was Raspberry Rascals, a fantastic children's shop that's just opened in Langton Place, Bury St Edmunds. Here's Heather, the founder, sorting out a few clothes that I decided to buy for the children.



Now this shop might look expensive, but Raspberry Rascals isn't just any old new shop if you get my drift. It's a gorgeous nearly new store aimed at children under 5. With clothes, toys, books and nursery equipment, Raspberry Rascals stocks a wonderful range of items in such excellent condition, you'd hardly know they were pre-loved.

It's a real gem of a shop and a perfect addition to the town centre. I can see it will be a regular hang-out for a fussy bargain-hunter like me.

Talking of real gems, on Sunday I popped over to one of Bury St Edmunds' other treasures, the wonderful craft fair at Blackthorpe Barn, a major event in Suffolk's Christmas calendar.

And look who I bumped into! The fabulous Steve Weeks, who'd travelled all the way up from Wiltshire to promote her stunning collection of handcrafted bags



And they really are beautiful, but as you can jolly well guess, I wouldn't just rave about any old bags, apart from my gorgeous Radley of course.

You see, each handbag is made from rescued materials that are sourced locally, which means every item is unique and a real eco-friendly find. Steve's work is really worth a blog post of its own, so I'll be coming back to that in the new year. In the meantime, take a look for yourself at www.beaubags.co.uk.

And if the weekend wasn't exciting enough, Just Gai over at Zero Waist has published December's Carnival of Trash today, so do hop over and have a read of all the fabulous posts. Then when that's done, tune into BBC Radio Suffolk's James Hazell Show on Tuesday morning when I'll be popping up at around 11.10 to chat about minimising waste this Christmas.

At last I'm beginning to feel some festive vibes. It's about time too. After all, I've done nothing but polish off mince pies since Friday. So before my Christmas spirit takes another nosedive, I'm off to decorate the Christmas Tree and wrap some presents.

____________________________________________________