Day of the Triffids

I have a giant triffid growing in my garden. It looks like innocent rhubarb (but of the enormously massive freaky sized variety) and I swear it grows an inch every time you turn your back on it.
This winter it disappeared completely and since it's re emergence from the depths (The vigorous stamping on the spot where it had been last autumn didn't get rid of it for good as I'd thought....) it's grown to a whopping shoulder height already.... in just a matter of weeks!
I'm ever so slightly concerned it may well turn out to be carnivorous, the kids are looking particularly healthy and outdoorsey at the moment - am I tempting fate by leaving it be within striking distance of the sandpit?!

Anyone who knows Alan Titchmarsh or indeed anyone who knows anything about freaky giant potentially carnivorous rhubarb please feel free to get in touch with some tips n' tricks.

I swear it growled at the dog this morning....

Today's blog rubbish picture is a hastily put together watchdog-esque look a like Triffid consisting rather appropriately of a garden centre catalogue and various scraps of recycled food packaging and fabric.

Spring views...

Another day, another Rubbish picture. Todays is inspired by Spring and the view out of my window.... the leaves are finally on the trees, the sky is blue and as my apprentice loves to point out, the bunnies are so happy they just can't stop cuddling each other...

Not just me and the Wombles...

I used to think it was just me and the Wombles who made stuff out of rubbish, but I went to see Mark Watson doing a show the other night. He's a very amusing fella so I brought his book and lo and behold, it turns out he's not only very amusing but also may well also be a link to a whole load of other womble-esque characters out there in the big wide world.
Mark Watson is crap at the environment. Official.

He even runs 'CATE'. The project started with the intention of 'saving the world, despite not being very good at it'. It aims to promote amateur environmentalism. I thought Rubbish Pictures was a pretty obscure way of being eco friendly but it seems there are a few more of us out there than first thought, trying to do our bit in our own little, slightly odd, way.... CATE encourages ordinary folk to small challenges, little things to change in your everyday life that will result in some environmental benefit. So if you want to know how to pimp your plant pot or create a bubble wrap dress - or just want to nose at slightly odd people doing amazing things in the name of saving the world. Go check out CATE.

A house on a hill

Spring is here. The sun is shining. My 'proper' work project is very nearly complete and I have 5 entire days left until school holidays and chaos reigns...
The glue is out, the stacks of old papers have been sorted into colour piles and the food cupboards have been raided for all their colourful and oooooh so unneccessary wrappings. Rubbish Pictures are GO. again.
I have been neglecting my little shop over at Folksy of late and so the first few pictures will be appearing there and I shall do my utmost to actually getting around to doing a little bit of marketing this time, rather than just leaving them to stagnate.
Heres the first:http://www.folksy.com/shops/wallop. It's made entirely out of bits of food packaging and a leaflet thrust into my hand on the way out of the local swimming pool, that would have been thrust straight back again, had it not been a rather nice shade of 'sky blue'....... ;-)

The demise of Tallulah...

Well it's been a sad couple of days in Wallopsville, particularly for my apprentice who is mourning the loss of Tallulah...the goldfish. She has been unable to aid me in any creative way this week partly due to her sorrow and partly due to her sudden macabre interest in funeral directing. Our Tallulah, it has to be said, wasn't a particularly much loved pet. She was well kept of course, (by me) and regularly fed (by me) and cleaned (by me) and even occasionally given such treats as a new bit of weed or a nice looking pebble from the beach.... (by me) but on the whole she was ignored for much of her soggy life. In death however, Tallulah has come into her own. Her funeral was not far off the scale of royalty, relatively speaking of course. We had an after school procession of reluctantly rounded up neighbourhood children somberly gathered at the graveside, gallantly braving the recorder recital, the placing of daisies, the reminiscing.... before making their excuses and running home for their....ahem... fish fingers and chips...

So - especially for my bereft little apprentice, todays rubbish picture is in honour of Tallulah. A lovely orange fish made up entirely of Sainsburys nappy packaging and a few old Charlie & Lola birthday invitations. RIP old gal.

Now I must dash, apparently 'Nemo -Lulah' (and friend!) are ready for collection from Petsmart.....

You can never have too many bunnys

It's easter in 48 days! As if you hadn't noticed the shops filling up with creme eggs...
To celebrate and try to actually add some stock to the Wallop shop on Folksy, todays additions being uploaded this very morning are Easter bunny cards.
More to follow... when I've unstuck my fingers. These guys maybe small but the mess to product ratio is not relative! :-)

What a load of Rubbish!

Second post... and quite enjoying this blogging malarky. It's the same feeling as I got as a kid every year when I got a new diary for Christmas and would long for the 1st of January to arrive so I could start writing all about my exhilarating life. I was 6 or 7 or maybe 8 and life wasn't hugely exhilarating to be truthful so the feeling generally wore off by about.... February. Still. I remember it well and this is it. Hopefully it won't wear off quite so quickly now I'm a grown up.

So today I'm working on my latest set of creations. I have recently started to try to be more eco friendly as and when I can, and this led to 'Rubbish Pictures' being born.

Rubbish Pictures are collages, of varying sizes ranging from A4 right up to big imposing poster sizes, made entirely of recycled household waste. Mostly food packaging and junk mail, but also old magazines and newspapers, all the irritating bits that fall out of your sunday papers into your corn flakes.... anything really that would otherwise go directly to the recycling bin or landfill.

I started with a picture or our dog Ned, created out of cheesy wotsits bags and moved on to a mermaid with a tail made of pink fruitella wrappers.... the mermaid led to another mermaid, which became a birthday gift. One birthday present led to a few more and before I knew it I was up to my elbows in glue and old stamps making an enormous ... peacock.

Now believe me, I have at several times stopped and wondered whether that 6 years of arts training, really should have led to this.... I may be turning slightly bonkers, eyeing up that 3 kilo tin of quality Street even before Christmas... not for the delights of a green triangle within, but the wonderful crinkly green foil it was clothed in and yes, I admit here I am, dishing out pink fruitellas till my kids teeth go furry all for the sake of finishing off just ....one more mermaids tail.

Its a strange life indeed.