Yda Walt, Sandton City SkylineSo while taking in the sights at the iStore we spotted a beautiful, gigantic Heath Nash Creation, which made me long so summer even more, bright colourful flowers and butterflies cut from coloured plastic bottles.
By his own admission Heath only started using plastic bottles when it became “cool to do so” and he also had a need to find his own niche within the design arena in SA. Initially he only used white milk bottles but his need for plastic has become overwhelming and now has a whole team that collects, sorts, cleans and cuts his bottles required for his creations.Below is an extract from Heath’s website on how to create a flower from a plastic bottle.
Arts and Crafts goes green peeps, ENJOY! - Garth.
"Let me explain the process involved in making a finished flower from a bottle. Try it at home – all you need is scissors! - Lots of bottles are found, sorted and collected.
- They are washed very thoroughly (with bio-degradable detergent) and dried.
- The handles and bases are carefully removed, and each bottle is splayed open into a semi-flat ‘sheet’.
- As many flowers as possible are cut from each bottle (we cut them using a die, but because they aren’t perfectly flat sheets, this is done by hand with a hammer – not in a mechanised press).
- Now each flower has to be formed from a ‘flattish’ shape into a more 3-dimenional form - each petal is folded in half, and individual lines are creased into each (also by hand). This forms the flower, and makes it more translucent where the lines are… adding to the detail and finish of the finished piece. (So if a flower has 6 petals, and there are 9 lines on each one, someone has creased 54 lines! For ONE flower).
- Finally, One flower is done!
- The excess plastic off cuts are returned to the recyclers."
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