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LittleReCreations

Upcycled decorations for events and festivals

About

Hi! My name is Kirsty and I am the woman behind LittleReCreations.

I have been working in corporate events management for over 15 years – and I love what I do! However I have always had a passion for festivals and have used the skills I developed as a Project and Events Manager in various roles around the festival circuit, in particular in Crew & Volunteer Management, Production, and Decor.

One thing I have NEVER understood about festival goers is how they can enjoy the beautiful landscapes and iconic countryside for the duration of the festival – then leave such a wasteful mess behind them when they leave. It baffles me how anyone could happily abandon the refuse from their whole weekend, including perfectly good tents and camping equipment.

I began by speaking to my industry contacts to see whether anyone else was feeling similarly outraged at the wasteful attitude of the average festival goer, and happily discovered that I was not alone. In 2016, I joined the Festival Waste Reclamation & Distribution group (or FWRD for short) and spent an afternoon walking through campsites at Boomtown, helping various charities to collect any items that could be passed on to people needing a helping hand. These items included brand new tents, chairs, sleeping bags, pillows, torches, sunglasses, hats, clothing, and food.

FWRD do an incredible job by linking up festivals to a huge range of different charities and not-for-profits around the country, and managing the salvage operations for different festival sites. It was at this first salvage that I met Angus and Mark from Herts for Refugees, an amazing charity who I now support by giving them 20% of all revenue made from LittleRecreation products.

Whilst walking around the sites, I noticed that while many of the tents were damaged and un-usable, the fabric was fabulous! The colours were bright and some of the patterns were absolutely stunning – surely there was something I could do with that? So I started collecting it.

I had no idea what I was going to do with it all, but in just four hours I had collected three bin bags full of beautiful, colourful fabric… and that was only from one field!!!

There are so many brilliant charities that rely on our throwaway society to support people in need, and many more people who are extremely grateful to be receiving new bedding, clothes, food, and shelters thanks to wasteful festival goers. But there is simply too much waste for these small organisations to manage and despite armies of willing volunteers scouring festival sites to collect supplies, there is still so much that goes to landfill unnecessarily.

Once I got home with my three-bag haul of fantastic fabrics, I got straight down to washing everything thoroughly before cutting it into strips with my pinking shears (scissors that cut fabric into a nice zigzag edge – and also helpfully stops material from fraying). With a little help from my friends, we created our first few meters of Tent Tinsel, and it looked amazing.

From there, my imagination and ideas have continued to grow… as has the range of decorations I can make using ALL components from the average festival tent – poles, clips, material, etc. – as well as a variety of other items found and adapted from festival site junk.

With an ever-growing range of products and many more ideas being developed, I am now hiring these newly up-cycled decorations back to the festivals they originally came from, often to decorate their campsites (how ironic!). They are also being used for private functions, weddings, local fairs, fetes, and parties.

I am still very much involved in helping FWRD at festivals, in particular Herts for Refugees. I still enjoy pottering around campsites with my scissors alongside Angus and Mark (plus any other friends I manage to drag along) stripping down the broken tents and reducing (strip by strip) the amount of waste that unfortunately still ends up in landfill.

As well as funding my own creative initiative, I am also passionate about continuing to support all the charities doing incredible work redistributing festival site ‘junk’ to people who really need it. That is why 20 pence of every pound spent with Little Recreations is donated to a selected charity – check out who is being supported this year via the link above.

Please continue looking through my website and if you would like more information on how to get involved please click here or to discuss hiring decorations or ordering custom Made4U items then you can contact me here.

About

Hi! My name is Kirsty and I am the woman behind LittleReCreations.

I have been working in corporate events management for over 15 years – and I love what I do! However, I have always had a passion for festivals and have used the skills I developed as a Project and Events Manager in various roles around the festival circuit, in particular in Crew & Volunteer Management, Production, and Décor.

After walking miles around different festival sites staring in horror at the apocalyptic scenes first hand, I knew I had to be part of the solution to clear up our countryside and prevent tonnes of perfectly good equipment going to landfill.
I began by speaking to my industry contacts to see whether anyone else was feeling similarly outraged at the wasteful attitude of the average festival goer, and happily discovered that I was not alone.

In 2016, I joined the Festival Waste Reclamation & Distribution group (or FWRD for short) and spent an afternoon walking through campsites at Boomtown, helping various charities to collect any items that could be passed on to people needing a helping hand. These items included brand new tents, chairs, sleeping bags, pillows, torches, sunglasses, hats, clothing, and food.

FWRD do an incredible job by linking up festivals to a huge range of different charities and not-for-profits around the country, and managing the salvage operations for different festival sites. It was at this first salvage that I met Angus and Mark from Herts for Refugees, an amazing charity who I still support by giving them 20% of all revenue made from Little Recreation products.

I had no idea what I was going to do with it all, but in just four hours I had collected three bin bags full of beautiful, colourful fabric… and that was only from one field!!!

There are so many brilliant charities that rely on our throwaway society to support people in need, and many more people who are extremely grateful to be receiving new bedding, clothes, food, and shelters thanks to wasteful festival goers. But there is simply too much waste for these small organisations to manage and despite armies of willing volunteers scouring festival sites to collect supplies, there is still so much that goes to landfill unnecessarily.

Once I got home with my three-bag haul of fantastic fabrics. I got straight down to washing everything thoroughly before cutting it into strips with my pinking shears (scissors that cut fabric into a nice zigzag edge – and also helpfully stops material from fraying). With a little help from my friends, we created the first few meters of Tent Tinsel, and it looked amazing.

From there, my imagination and ideas have continued to grow… as has the range of decorations I can make using ALL components from the average festival tent – poles, clips, material, etc. – as well as a variety of other items found and adapted from festival site junk.

With an ever-growing range of products and many more ideas being developed, I am now hiring these newly up-cycled decorations back to the festivals they originally came from, often to decorate their campsites (how ironic!). They are also being used for private functions, weddings, local fairs, fetes, and parties.

As well as funding my own creative initiative, I am also passionate about continuing to support all the charities doing incredible work redistributing festival site ‘junk’ to people who really need it. That is why 20 pence of every pound spent with Little Recreations is donated to a selected charity – check out who is being supported this year via the link above.

Decorations

What is a party, or festival, without decorations? Uninspiring!

Decorations add colour, vibrancy, and a welcoming atmosphere that help make every event feel special. I always choose the brightest colours and motifs to make my unique upcycled Tent Tinsel, Dream Catchers, Brolly Flowers, Stake Trees, and Flags really pop. They will quickly transform any area – whether inside, or outside – into a fun and festive space. I provide individual quotes for each booking with prices varying by location, quantity, time required on site to set-up, and length of hire. If you have your own decorations which you would like us to include in our set-up, or if you would like extra help preparing for the event, we are also happy to lend a hand.

Tent Tinsel

My Tent Tinsel is made with 100% upcycled tent materials (I even use guy ropes to string it all up!). It is extremely versatile, it comes in 4m lengths and is lightweight, waterproof, fire retardant, and is guaranteed to brighten up even the dullest of spaces.

Dream-Catchers

I make two different styles of Dream Catcher for indoor and outdoor use. My indoor ones are crocheted and are made from donated materials, while my outdoor ones are made from tent guy ropes and tent material, using tent poles to create a variety of weird and wonderful shapes. All of them are colourful with a range of designs and sizes.

Other Decorative ReCreations

Sadly, every year I see more and more tents abandoned on festival sites – but fortunately for me, this means that I am constantly developing my range of decorations and finding new inspiration. When you book me to decorate your event, I will always bring extra decorations including any new designs, which you are welcome to add to your panoply to make your space look the part.

If you like what you see then please do get in touch to check out availability and get a quote now

Decorations

What is a party, or festival, without decorations? Uninspiring!

Tent Tinsel

Dream-Catchers

Other Decorative ReCreations

If you like what you see then please do get in touch to check out availability and get a quote now

Made4U

As someone who has declared a war on waste, I couldn’t bear throwing away my tent scraps. Many of the off-cuts were still large enough for something, but it took a little while and some experimentation before I settled on a couple of concepts – see below!

Personalised High Vis Jacket

Personalised High Vis Jackets are a fantastic way to add a LittleReCreation to your wardrobe for the festival season. Whether you want your name, company logo, or just a fun image, you can make it all your own.

See the price list below:

If you like what you see then please do get in touch to discuss lead times and place your order

Made4U

Personalised High Vis Jacket

See our price list below.

If you like what you see then please do get in touch to discuss lead times and place your order

Supporting

When I first joined the salvage with FWRD in August 2016, I quickly became friends with Angus and Mark from Herts for Refugees, They immediately took me under their wing and I spent the day with them collecting tents and other useful items, which they went on to deliver to refugee camps around Europe. They have been very supportive whilst I have been coming up with my ideas and we continue to meet up in festival fields around the country during the summer, where I still help them collect tents for refugees. Now, they also bring me materials from broken tents for my projects.

I have been truly inspired by their personal dedication, as well as the love and hard-work they put into this charity, and I wanted to contribute more than just a few hours in a field every few months. So, when I started to pull together my business plan, it was pretty easy to choose which charity I wanted to support.

Herts for Refugees is a charity based near St Albans in Hertfordshire. Their amazing volunteers collect and deliver vital aid for refugees throughout Europe and the Middle East. They also organise fundraising events in order to purchase essential equipment and arrange volunteer trips to support various refugee organisations.

If you want to find out more about this inspirational group of people and the charity they support, or to find out about how to get involved or donate, simply follow the links below.

Herts for Refugees

Registered Charity no. 1167716

Supporting

If you want to find out more about this inspirational group of people and the charity they support, or to find out about how to get involved or donate, simply follow the links below.