Lisa Crick found internet fame after her work of recycling old sofas into handbags and aprons was discovered online. And luckily for us, she proves that with a bit of creativity, recycling is within anybody's reach.
Her journey toward selling unique bags and aprons started in 2018 when she was changing the curtains in her home with her husband. He asked her what she was intending to do with the leftover fabric from the old ones.
"Well, I'll make luggage [because] how hard could it be?" she says on the website for her brand, NewBaginnings. "Well — really hard, as it turns out."
After her attempt to make luggage went awry, she decided to try her hand at a handbag instead. She had trouble using the pattern she grabbed from the shop but pushed through and completed the project.
"But this bag has so many additions, it defeated the whole idea of using up the curtains, which were waste, so taking advice from my daughter, I head over to Pinterest for some ideas," she said, regarding that first iteration.
After finding adequate inspiration and ideas, she began chopping up denim. Her path toward entrepreneurship was set when her shop NewBaginnings was born.
It wasn't long after developing her first product that she began making connections with thrift shops to get ahold of ripped clothes that couldn't be sold. Now she had plenty of material to work with.
But the biggest uptick in her creativity happened during COVID when she gathered a bunch of material from a factory full of sample suedes and leathers that was shutting down. After successfully making bags with new materials, she found herself more confident and eager to take on projects with even more varied materials.
As the lockdown stretched on, more people organized their homes, and thus, she gathered more materials.
"I am always amazed at what people have stored in their lofts, attics, and garages, and I am always amazed and excited by what arrives at my door," she says.
Crick's story serves as a fantastic example of what a bit of imagination can do for items once destined for the landfill.
If you are interested in giving something like this a try, perhaps you'll find inspiration in a small confession of hers on her website, "Did I mention that I was self-taught — oh, and I can't read patterns."
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