Cute and clever are the first words that come to mind to describe the jewelry and other trinkets Angi, of Angi D*signs, makes. Her business tag line is “upcycled whimsy.”
“There is so much we throw away that can be new things,” Angi told me.
To make jewelry, keychains and other items, Angi uses what many of us toss in the trash without a second thought. These materials include phone cords, pop tabs, floppy disks, bottle tops and upcycled upholstery leather. She also uses china tea sets to make custom lamps and wine bottles into tiki torches.
She started crafting by making traditional beaded jewelry as Christmas presents for her family. But the expense of beads got old, so she started looking for less conventional materials.
When her office updated their technology, she rescued phone cords from their landfill fate. The plastic plugs at the cord ends caught Angi’s attention and inspired her to transform them into earrings — some studs with just the plastic piece, others with original wiring adding color.
After making plug earrings, she was left with a lot of phone cord.
“I’ve always loved celtic knots,” she said. When brainstorming how to use the phone cord, she thought, “this is kind of like string.”
Since then she has made an array of earrings and necklaces by knotting different colors of phone cord. Some are more subtle, and at first glance you might not realize what material Angi used. But she said when she shares her work at craft shows folks typically do notice.
“I’ll see people just squint, and then move closer,” she said. “If they look at my work, I just want them to smile. Then I’ve done my job.”
Angi told me the most common word she hears when people see her creations is one I used at the beginning of this column: Clever.
The cuteness comes in when you add the scale of most of her designs. She uses old fashioned flared bottle tops as pie plates, which she fills with molded epoxy clay and paints to look like miniature pies of various flavors.
Banana, cherry, lemon meringue, pumpkin and others are available as both necklaces and (at Hoot and Howl only) as keychains. Angi said lemon meringue and cherry were most popular, when she first started making them. When autumn hit the pumpkin pie topped off as most in demand.
Angi uses newer bottle tops for the bottoms of mini cages, which she makes out of wire. Into these cages she puts tiny birds, sloths, lamas, mothman and other teeny tiny creatures that she sculpts from the same clay as the pies.
These are also available as necklaces, but she said customers sometimes convert them to rearview mirror ornaments, etc.
She upcycles materials as much as she can, including fixing broken or tangled chains for necklaces over buying new whenever she can. “I’ve always been pretty eco conscious,” and now she focuses her artisan creations on using post-consumer materials.
Being inspired by these materials and making sweet jewelry and other things is Angi’s “pocket of joy.” She said, “I always have a project with me.”
She hopes her work will not only make people smile, but also think twice before throwing things away and buying new things.
Seeing her work, and learning more about her inspiration and process has already made me look twice at what I typically toss, and wonder if it has a future as a beautiful accessory.
ALDONA BIRD is a journalist, previously writing for The Dominion Post. She explores possibilities of local productivity and sustainable living in Preston County.
