Odd News
Philippine designer makes gowns out of recycled trash
Lenora Buenviaje has been making dresses out of waste materials for the past seven years and says wearing clothes made from such items as recycled newspapers, plastic wrapping and rice sacks can be both economical and fashionable.
Using a foot-operated sewing machine, the 51-year-old Philippine seamstress stitches and weaves plastics and other materials into inventive and fashionable frocks and gowns.
“The bubble wraps from delivery packages are nice looking and make for a good design, especially the black and white wraps. White wraps were good for making fairy or wedding gowns,” she said.
The dresses sell at $30 and $50 and are used for everything from debuts — a coming-of-age party for a woman’s 18th birthday – to weddings.
In Asia, there is plenty of waste material for Buenviaje to work with: About 80 percent of global ocean plastic is estimated to come from Asian rivers. “It’s important to recycle or utilise used materials so we can help our earth,” Buenviaje’s client Lalaine Alcalde said.
Buenviaje, who lives in Cainta, about 15 km (10 miles) east of Manila, said the recycled material used for each dress depended on what her clients were looking for.
Her gowns are sometimes used in beauty contests and pageants.
She hopes in-person fashion shows and competitions that were halted during the pandemic will soon resume as she aims to organise fashion events herself to showcase and inspire others to create clothing out of recycled materials. -gulfnews.com
A message in a bottle launched by visitors to Newfoundland’s Bell Island was found washed up on an Irish beach nearly 13 years later, after apparently crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
Kate Gay said she was walking a Dingle Peninsula beach this week when she spotted the wine bottle with a sheet of paper inside.
Gay showed the bottle to members of Creative Ireland NeartnaMacharaí during a meeting at her house that evening, and they broke the bottle open.
The note, written by a couple named Brad and Anita, was dated Sept. 12, 2012. The letter described the couple’s day trip to Bell Island.
There was a phone number on the letter, but there was no answer when group members tried to call.
The Maharees Heritage and Conservation group posted photos of the bottleto social media on Monday, and within an hour group members were messaging with Anita.
Group member Martha Farrell said Anita reported that she and Brad had married in 2016 and are still together to this day. -upi.com
A Spanish woman who has been collecting egg cups for over 50 years earned a Guinness World Record when her collection was tallied at 15,485 items.
María José Fuster recruited two witnesses to help her tally her collection at a community center in her hometown of Campo, Spain.
Fuster’s collection includes multiple patterns, colors, designs and even novelty cups bearing the images of characters including Superman, Betty Boop and Garfield.
Fuster maintains two blogs related to her hobby — one to catalog each piece, and one to list the names of the people who have donated egg cups to her collection.
Some of her most prized egg cups, about 1,143 of them, are currently on display at a local museum.
-upi.com
