creations for cetaceans | whales untangled

Meet Lulu, our entry to the World Cetacean Alliance's (WCA) 'Untangled' Project. The WCA is based in Brighton and their aim with the 'Untangled' Project is to raise awareness of Ghost Netting.

What's Ghost Netting I hear you say? Well it's any fishing gear, from ropes to nets, that is discarded from the boat and ends up in the sea. This is a huge problem as you can imagine for our sea life, as they become entangled and can't get free. Lulu is an orca (extra fact, did you know orcas are DOLPHINS not whales?! - mind blown) that got caught in discarded nets off the coast of the Hebrides at the beginning of this year and is the inspiration behind our piece.

Ghost netting can occur for a whole host of reasons from nets breaking from the boat and it being too costly for the crew to retrieve them, to nets becoming broken and then costing the fisherman money to put into landfill when they return to land, so they are discarded at sea. Things can also fall from the boat in high seas, a whole reel of brand new nylon rope was found on Brighton beach recently!

There is a recycling centre where they will pay for the materials though, and awareness of this is one of the things the WCA is doing in their project.

ropes attached to the pier

removing netting from the seaweed on Brighton beach

So Lulu was our response to what is happening to our local sea life, we walked along Brighton beach and in just a short stretch (between the Palace Pier and the West Pier) we found all of the rope pictured plus much more which we removed from the beach - this was after the beach had been cleaned!

Lulu is made from 3 mm laser cut acrylic, with an extra layer of 3 mm in clear acrylic with teal ink rubbed into engraved lines to create this 3D net design. She is hung from a short 40 cm 'found' teal nylon rope with silver plated findings and clasp with a designosaur toggle.

There's only one....

Lulu is now up for charity auction on eBay, and you can bid for her and a bunch of other pieces created for the project until the 21st February 2016.

If you want a closer look at the piece it will be in Brighton at the Painting Pottery Cafe (window display)from the 15th February. 

If you want to find out more then you can tweet us, or the WCA, and we'd be happy to help. Oh and don't forget to bid!

ROAR!

Karli (and Jacques)

designosaur workshop at the university of sussex

Last week we were invited to the University of Sussex Students Union to run a jewellery making workshop alongside some other Brighton Etsy Team members.

It was a drop in 'crafternoon' as part of Refreshers Week and we set up for the day in Room 76, a fancy new bit of the Union which definitely wasn't like that when Jacques and I were there! (it used to be a dingy nightclub called 'The Cube')

We took along pliers, snips, findings, chain and hundreds of tiny coloured dinosaurs to make some of dinosaur charm necklaces.

It's fun giving people free reign though, as some people made bracelets, or pendant necklaces and not one design was even similar to another one created on the day!

We are very excited that we have lots of new acrylic colours so expect some new designs and maybe even some charm necklaces hitting the shop soon!

Want to see more of what went on? Take a look at the Brighton Etsy Team blog.

ROAR!

Karli

Photo Credit | JureamBox