Recycling is LUSH!

Hey! If you've hit my site because you saw my name across the window in LUSH, then welcome. Come on in!

And if you have stumbled upon me and haven't seen my work for LUSH, then get on down to your high street. There are 7 trees in different locations, as well as windows inspired by my work in 88! LUSH gathered together their staff and friends to come up with funky Christmas decorations that we can all make and in doing so, keep waste out of landfill.

LUSH are a cosmetics company against animal testing and oh so much more.
They have always been against the use of excess packaging, but now one of their directors, Mark Constantine, is really getting behind the anti-packaging movement. (You may even have seen the documentary he did for TV recently, teaming up with the WI.)

So I've worked closely with their environmental officer to create a piece that will make you, the general public, look at packaging and waste differently.

The result? The Joy Tree.

The Joy Christmas tree is in memory of a friend's mother, Joy, who always made sure that her children had a tree at Christmas, no matter how tight money was, even if it was a painted and decorated branch from the local park. The original tree that you can see elsewhere on my site was decorated with tiny toys from crackers collected by Joy and used from one year to the next. It was this that helped inspire the tree project.

If you would like to make a Joy Tree, then I'm happy to supply you with the instructions, but there are a few rules to their release.

The Rules Are:

1) It's not sold for profit when it's made - although I'm happy for it to be used in the context of charities and awareness groups' auctions. Consider the instructions a gift and then you can gift on what results from your crafting.

2) If you use it for awareness campaigns/advertising/features (as many people are) then you give me a credit with the original concept. "Original Joy Tree concept by Inga Hamilton at www.rockpoolcandy.com"

3) That you spread the word about what you make into schools/tell friends and family, etc, so that people start to be challenged by what they view as trash and maybe make their own trees. (People rarely look at a plastic bottle in the same way again, when they've seen the tree.)

4) You take pictures of whatever you make and any that people you tell make and email them to me, as I'm building a library of people from around the world. We're creating a Christmas tree forest to raise awareness of plastic usage. I'll put the pics of the trees on my site. It's already 'growing' in the States and Canada.

So if you're happy with that, then I'll happily send you out the instructions, just email me. I'm not trying to be precious about the project, but just to make the world a little bit better with every crafter that takes up the challenge! : )