Make, Grow + Mend

21/11/2025

Our crew are going to busy this weekend! Drop in and say hello if you’re about… no need to be feeling festive ♻️💚🌍

04/11/2025

We’re open from 10am until 1pm 👻

Our post-Halloween pop-up is open in Market Gates Shopping Centre with recipes for surplus pumpkins, a sweet selection tub collection and spooky stitch for anyone who’s still living the Halloween vibes 👻

28/10/2025

Bring your Halloween waste to our pop-up at Market Gates Shopping Centre so our ghosts can make, grow and mend from the materials 👻🎃♻️💚🌍

06/09/2025

Last year our Plant Allies programme in Aylsham was a support to our community through the colder darker months. We’re excited to welcome it back for a second cycle. So this morning we gathered for a little celebration of the forthcoming Plant Allies sessions.

Plant Allies is all about reconnecting with the native plants around us through our senses and their stories, while also discovering new human connections. So gathering on a sunny Saturday to make fire cider felt fitting as we prepare for the season ahead.

Wastesmiths CIC is privileged to work with on this unique programme. As an organisation tackling human waste in the natural environment, we see our work as an act of being an ally to the plant world, and it’s a relationship that’s reciprocal when we allow plant medicine to support us. Wastesmiths is all about waste and weeds 🌱♻️💚🌍

19/05/2025

Big news this May, an invitation to play with some of our favourite plastic and textiles transformation techniques in Market Gates in Yarmouth. Wastesmiths is popping up for three days of making with waste materials and day one is all about plastic with Precious Plastic East and We Wear The Trousers.

On Monday 26th May we’ll have at least one Litter Arcade machine in the building and some intriguing techniques to transform plastic you’ll have a home into useful things.

On Tuesday 27th May we’ll have our unique and ginormous looms in the building and some intriguing techniques to transform unwanted clothes into useful things.

So how’s it going to work? The doors will open at 10.30am for two hours of drop-in experimenting. We’ll pause at 12.30pm to reset for the afternoon session which you’ll need to book onto from 1.30pm.

To book onto the afternoon session either drop in on the Monday or Tuesday morning or email us at [email protected]

Children will need to be accompanied by an adult and places will be limited for the afternoon. Looking forward to seeing you during the May school holiday 💚♻️🌍

22/02/2025

This first-rate example of ‘wastesmithing’ is well worth a share for some trash photography creative inspiration. Love the references to playing with techniques… wait until you see what he does with an old cheesecake tin ♻️💚🌍

Sadly, I don't have the answers to fix our throw-away-society, but I do have some ideas to make some creative and abstract photographic images using it. Whil...

20/02/2025

Our first newsletter of the year is on its way to your inboxes ahead of a magnificent March.

If you're not on our mailing list then take a peek below, and join our newsletter club here: https://lnkd.in/efy796y9

09/02/2025

It’s February and time for our second post of the year celebrating an awesome Norfolk organisation. This one prompted by a perfect afternoon pottering around Waterloo Park.

Though we were gathered by , the folks we want to celebrate today are The Friends of Waterloo Park.

As if being guardians of one of our county’s glorious green spaces wasn’t enough, the Friends of Waterloo Park actively seek out a deeper relationship with the things that grow in their little pocket of park shaped perfection. And here are the pictures to prove it, of their natural dyeing experiments.

Visits to Waterloo Park over the last 12 months have been a constant curiosity as we explore our own dye plant practices. We’ve watched their dye plants quietly do their thing throughout the seasons, never imagining the riot of colour these humble plants had in store.

We’ll be honest we were totally inspired. The range of colours, creativity and playful touches were simply stunning.

As we start out on another year of our own plant experiments, today has refocused our minds on what is possible. A massive thank you to both The Common Lot and The Friends of Waterloo Park for this exhibition. We’re very much looking forward to making more human connections in Norwich, Aylsham and Great Yarmouth in 2025 as we continue our plant powered pigment journey.

07/12/2024

They’re on sale!

A heroic effort from our Make, Grow + Mend crew at Yarmouth’s very own over the last few months has seen hundreds of kilograms of DVDs sorted shredded and remoulded into these beautiful Christmas decorations.

It seems fitting that our first product available to buy on the ‘high street’ is available to purchase at the one and only PrimeYarc in Great Yarmouth. Handmade by Yarmouth hands out of Norfolk plastic destined for landfill, and now awaiting a spot on your Christmas tree in our lovely little home town.

All of the credit for this make should go to Clare and Mandy who had the idea of designing a Christmas decoration that we could manufacture. They designed the mould. We’ve then been working with Clare and Mandy to manufacture these beauties over the last month.

Stock is limited so get down there while they last ♻️💚🌍

05/12/2024

We’ve got a busy session today sorting our latest crop of DVDs for their colourful plastic cases. The full cycle will be active this afternoon as we’ll also be injection moulding another run of stars for the festive season ahead from the shredded DVD plastic.

These sessions are relaxed and social with the movies that pop up in the bags we receive from local charity shops sparking conversation. The DVDs we process are all rejects from a local charity, either due to damaged discs, content or excessive supply of a particular film. Once they are stripped down to their individual components, we shred the cases and mould the plastic into new stuff.

If you fancy seeing a little more of what we do or want to spend a productive couple of hours helping us process Norfolk’s waste plastic into new things then you’re very welcome to drop by ♻️💚🌍

03/12/2024

It’s a tea tasting Tuesday today. We’ve spent the summer collecting roots, leaves and flowers from the green corners of Yarmouth and today was the day to explore their smells and flavours. We had ginkgo leaves, yarrow flowers, raspberry leaves, mallow root and nettle leaves. Lots of local flavours, you could call it locali-tea.