Tis the season to be jolly, tra la la la la, la la la la. Spend your money on presents and folly, tra la la la la, la la la la. All the plastic that will be purchased, just to keep those stockings full. Tra la la la la la la.

We do not celebrate Christmas in our house truck, and luckily where I live, there is not too much of a big deal made about it. I have however been spurred on with the idea to create something made from recycled products to sell at the Christmas market. Yes I know I don't celebrate it but here I am trying to make money from it. Bit of a hypocrite perhaps? But as things are I am seizing the day, I need to make an income, in such a way that allows me to stay at home with my girls.

And anyhow me and my girls exchange gifts on Winter Solistice, gifts for one another and the earth.

I have created a women's Co Op in the area that I live in and for the last few weeks myself and a few of the women have been meeting up every Tuesday to discuss how the Co Op will work and to share creative ideas. Mostly we talk, but that is vital, as with everything in life communication is key. Last week I was super excited to get accepted by the @homesteaderscoop (https://homesteaderscoop.com/) community and we will be opening an online store in their online marketplace. If you have not checked them out please please do, they are in their own words.....

Homesteaders Co-op is a community marketplace where homesteaders around the world offer their handmade, sustainable goods for SBD (Steem Backed Dollar).

Yeah for promoting SBD, this amazing project has been created by @sagescrub (on steemit), and I am so so grateful for the opportunity they have created for all of us vendors. There are so many creative women in the community I live in and my goal in setting up Weave to Empower Women Co Op, was to find ways in which to empower and support the women who are trying to provide an income for themselves and their families. So this marketplace is such a an amazing opportunity for us as it allows us to promote our products internationally. There will be jewellery, clothing, weaving, creams and oils and hopefully much more in the future.

Some Monster Love
But today, today was all about monsters for me. So after making 2 more today, (I made my first last week) I decided to take some photos. The monsters are all made from clothes that were mine or my daughters and have been wore with love until there was no wearing them no more. Basically until they were falling apart. The blue bodies are an old vest of mine and the arms were old leggings from my daughters. The colourful patterned material is offcuts from my friend who makes the most amazing clothes and will be selling some of them soon online at the homesteaderscoop.

The buttons and wool are all things that I had in our creativity box. The monsters themselves are stuffed with cotton from our old T Shirts, T Shirts that were beyond repair. I really hate to throw things away and I am a big believer in finding ways to reuse items that no longer serve their initial purpose and especially at this time of the year when people spend huge amounts of money on things that no one actually needs. Okay the same can be said about my monsters, no one actually needs them. But they are showing how we can actually chose the type of item we wish to buy. We can't stop people buying but we can start to produce more upcycled produce and in doing so educate our children along the way.

So today, today I was making and photographing Monsters. Tomorrow well tomorrow who knows, maybe I will find some flying unicorns to photograph xxxx

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