A chance meeting in a cafe between two women who shared a love of art, community, red wine and 1920s ballet costumes has led the authors on an incredible creative journey. Kate MacKay and Di Jennings are the creative spirits behind the Alchemy Arts organisation in Edinburgh, that collects waste and unwanted materials from businesses, runs workshops for adults and children, and then displays the results in parades and exhibitions in Edinburgh. The book contains over fifty projects from dresses made from curtain material, swirling skirts, and bikinis knitted from plastic bags.

They have collected their favourite projects in which fashion, useful objects for the home, and fancy dress are created from what would otherwise be put into the bin and end up either being buried in landfill or destroyed. The book has stylish photography by Di Jennings amongst others. Readers will be able to discover how to transform old silk ties into designer dresses, make a top hat for a fancy dress party from old playing cards, how make a pillbox hat from plastic shopping bags and a book bag from a bedspread, and how to recycle items to make outfits that will make you look like Audrey Hepburn.

Alchemy Arts aims to: divert waste from landfill, create socially aware inclusive arts projects, facillitate urban regeneration and inspire the creative transformation of materials, spaces and people

Click here to read an extract

Price £11.99 / $22.00
ISBN 978-0-7145-3200-4
Published 25th March 2010
Format 165 x 230 mm portrait, original paperback, colour photographs

Design by Anna Chapman of www.fogbank.co.uk

Photography by d.n.anderson at www.dnanderson.co.uk and Fraser Morgan