Wednesday 28 July 2010

Rain: 2 Umbrellas: 0

Yes, it has been raining most days recently but it hasn't been particularly windy. No - these gallant umbrellas were let down by shoddy mechanisms; unfortunately at the same time dooming me to wrestling with an unopened umbrella in the middle of a cloudburst. "Help me I'm melting..." etc.
Anyway, I started wondering if anything useful could be made from the remains rather than pitching the whole lot into landfill. I thought a shopping bag would be a good idea. The fabric from a brolly would fold up nice and small to enable it to be carried around in a pocket or bag whilst still being strong and durable for heavy loads. The fact that it's waterproof would be an added benefit over the cotton type bags I already have. These brollies could have their day once more!
I've started taking the fabric off the ribs and will update how the bag making goes but having just had a little google about I've seen that I'm not the first to come up with this idea. So there you go - upcycle those brollies and equip yourself with a free waterproof shopper at the same time. Win - win I reckon. :-)

2 comments:

  1. That's a good idea Ruth; I'm guessing that you'd make more than one bag from one umbrella?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi TA. Yes - I'm thinking 2 or 3 depending what size you wanted. Also wondering about a lined one with bubble wrap for frozen stuff, although it'd no longer be compact it'd cheaper than buying a cool bag. Think a test on the insulating properties may be in order if I ever do that though. :-)

    ReplyDelete

I love my comments!!!!
Thank you for reading. I read all my comments and am trying to get better at replying to them too. :-)
Lovely to have you pass by. Be shiny. :-D