Where i am going from here

During my tutorial it was brought to my attention that i needed to narrow down my idea, as up-cycling is more of an ideal rather than a skill. From this i have brain stormed ideas that interest me in this field. i will then choose 3 that i want to explore a bit more before making a final decision on what i will produce.

I have chosen to look into ; Car parts into furniture
                                            Recycled everyday materials into furniture
                                            2D permanent designing onto cheap products.

First idea

My girl friend was going threw some old stuff and was throwing out an old but unused vacuum filter, i asked if i could have it because it had an interesting shape and could be used to make something with it.With this in mind i remembered one of the 'Ikea Hacks' i had researched, which was a cheese grater that had been turned into a light shade. I then took the filter and looked at the lights we had in the house and tried fitting them together and ended up having to shave away some of the plastic until it fitted, and it works very well. 

Caroline Key

The project in particular called 'Trash Furnishing'
From her studio in Edinburgh, caroline created a collection of bespoke up-cycled furniture, every piece is fully restored and re-worked, giving them a new look for modern living whilst retaining their character. Each piece of furniture is selected with certain style and potential and then she restores them and brings them a new modern up to date style. She also sources furniture you like and then adds her twist and fits them in your home.
I like the idea of people being able to say what they want so it will fit in there home and then her finding the piece and working on it to then be sold to the customer.

37 old London road

37 old london road is a new home furnishing store based in kingston london, it was selected to take part in the new series of Mary Queen of shops with Mary Portas, the owners are creating a collection of reworked, up-cycled and hand crafted products for the home. They combine vintage items with traditional techniques to rework forgotten furniture and create unique, modern furnishings to decorate households.

Lucy Turner

Lucy turner takes peices of house hold furnature and creates large brightly couloured lazer cut organic designs to attach to the front of them. Her unique bespoke designs are transferable across the spectrum of interior design. Lucy specialises in mid- century furniture and then laser cut formica laminate with her own designs but she does also work with other techniques like carpeting and large wall pieces and others.

The old London Cinema

The old cinema in London is the only department store where it only sells antiques, vintage, retro and up-cycled furniture, they source pieces of work and touch them up for sale. The up-cycled work is very inspiring and shows there is a niche for this form of design. 

From this website i have seem some great examples of up-cycling and found a woman called 'Lucy Turner', 

Process of up-cycling.

Up-cycling is the process of taking an existing product, scrap or parts of old products with little value and changing them and creating new products with a value with out much of a cost.
we dispose of a vast amount of products in landfill sites around the uk, just looking at clothing and textiles we throw away about 1.8 tonnes every year, which is about 2 million pints of beer. But up-cycling takes that waste product which has great value and returns it into the market with innovative ideas and designs.

http://www.wornagain.co.uk/

With this idea of taking products back into the market at very low cost and with great design aspects as well as being environmentally 'green', i think that this is something well worth looking into and exploring further and seeing where other people have profited.