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ReVamp Boutique

revamp boutique

Colchester

Described by Essex County Council as a  "A sustainable role model business!" Our story....When Sarah & Simon met in 2007, Sarah had just renovated her home and Simon had no idea what change of direction was coming his way! A few years on, after the birth of their son, they both recognised that they had more in common than just love!  Their passion for creatively ReUsing everyday items became fun and constant ReThinking anything from a shells to furniture to their most recent project an Upfurbished Lodge ReTreat in Suffolk. With Interior Design experience Sarah started to incorporate ReUsing in her schemes, recognising a “gem” that needed some ReLoving and clients started to offer her pieces to upcycle. Not long after she had her first furniture sale and commissions followed!  And so ReVamp Boutique was born! With basic carpentry skills from school Simon started to adapt some of the pieces under Sarah’s design eye and soon Simon took an interest in the upholstery side making this a formidable creative team. Sarah’s passion is to share some ReVamp secrets, and returning to her teaching experience she  gleaned at a local college, she now runs creative ReUse workshops which are not just sustainable but fun, sociable, excellent for your well being and the best gifts for family, friends and loved ones! The business has now undertaken many commissions, with Simon now an accomplished upholsterer and Sarah a furniture artist seen at Grand Designs and Westfield Stratford & London. The couple now have premises to run their workshops, take commissions and sell their statement furniture as well as their Retreat, the complete ReVamp experience, available for booking now. We would love you to get in touch to catch the infectious bug of upcycling and ReUsing with us!

Gina-B Silkworks

gina-b silkworks

Grantham

Gina-B Silkworks designs and produces a variety of craft kits, books, DVDs and other items with an emphasis on handwork & passementerie - decorative textile crafts. We also stock a range of tools & materials for these crafts. Gina also makes bespoke items to commission. "Traditional Crafts for the modern maker" About Gina - Gina Barrett has been making reconstructions of buttons, dress trimmings and other passementerie for museums and costumiers since 1999. Her work can be seen in a variety of museums, heritage sites & stately homes including the Royal Mews, the Royal Armouries, Historic Royal Palaces, The Victoria & Albert Museum, English Heritage, Chicago Museum of Art and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.  She provided buttons, ribbons and braid for an award-winning project at Perth Museum, and hundreds of buttons for the film “Sweeney Todd”. Her latest film work includes buttons for "Napoleon" and "Lee". She has created buttons & trimmings for various series including “The Crown”, “Becoming Elizabeth” , “A Stitch in Time”. She is the author of a number of books including Buttons, A Passementerie Workshop Manual, Dorset Ring Buttons, Thread Wrapped Buttons, Zwirnknopf Buttons and the Making Passementerie range of instructional DVDs. She appears on the Create & Craft channel with demonstrations of passementerie techniques, representing her company Gina-B Silkworks. Gina is the contributor for the Passementerie entry in the Encyclopaedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles c. 450-1450 (Brill). She has also co-authored Tak V Bowes Departed: A 15th Century Braiding Manual Examined and 6 booklets on medieval narrow wares, and regularly produces how-to articles for magazines, as well as papers and essays on other forms of passementerie. Gina has been involved in textile research projects with groups around the world, and is a founder member of Soper Lane, a group begun in 1999 to research the lives and work of the medieval London silkwomen.  Gina is a trained illustrator, with a background in historical and diagram illustration and graphic design. Her passion for textiles grew from studying historical costume for her illustrative work.