If you have been shopping recently you will have no doubt discovered that many shops sell almost exactly the same mass produced thing and finding an original and well made gift for a child is very difficult. Pebble toys are the exact opposite. Affordable, machine washable and gorgeous each one is unique and simply delightful.

Pebble Toys are a lovely collection of hand knitted and crocheted soft toys ranging from the sweetest little owl and pixie rattles to bright green dinosaurs. Pebble brings smiles not only to the faces of the children who are lucky enough to own a Pebble toy but to the amazing women who make these lovely things. By simply buying a Pebble soft toy you are helping women and children in Bangladesh to earn a decent living Pebble is part of the nonprofit organization Hathay Bunano that is based in Bangladesh. The main goal of the organisation is to create flexible job opportunities for women in rural Bangladesh who have no source of income.

The workers co-operative was set up by Samantha Morshed to provide fairly paid work for women in rural communities. Traditionally women have had to leave their communities and move to Dhaka to earn money, and Dhaka is a very harsh city to live in. The traffic is horrific, the electricity supply unreliable and if you are poor you are likely to be living in extremely overcrowded and dirty conditions .

Pebble toys are hand made, cotton crochet toys that offer hope to the women who make them and joy to the children who own them..

They are gorgeous, unique, affordable and fair trade. Can't get better than that!

Elephants are poor digesters more than 50% of the food they eat comes out as fibrous pulp. Paper is essentially fibrous pulp.

Elephants produce over 50 kg of dung per day on average. This is sufficient for making around 115 sheets of elephant paper per day per animal.

Elephants are a nuisance for farmers in Sri Lanka because they eat crops and threaten the farmers’ livelihood the income produced by the sale of elephant dung paper makes them a far more attractive beast to local farmers and they are less likely to harm them. The income also provides capital to support sanctuaries for the elephants.

The process of creating elephant paper

The elephant dung paper making process takes approximately 13 days – 3 days for drying including sorting, boiling and disinfecting; and another 10 days to pulp, mix, press and dry the paper. It uses traditional paper making techniques and the elephant dung pulp is usually mixed with recycled paper to add strength to the final product. It follows a simple process:

Collect the elephant dung

Wash and boil

Add the colours

Sift evenly into frames

Dry the paper pulp using sunlight

Smooth the surface

Create eco-freindly journals, notebooks, cards etc

Recycled art and Township art from Africa is an example of how beautiful things can be made from renewable sources. Much of the recycled art from Africa is made from simple things that are then skillfully recycled and turned into a treasure.

There is a wide array of unique handcrafted Beaded and Wire Art that provides many creative uses. Some of the many unique gift ideas  include the following: Recycled Tin Planes, Recycled Flip Flop Sculptures, Plastic Bags and  Baskets, Recycled Metal Candle Maid with Beaded Skirt, Recycled Paper Cards, and much more.

For collectors the animals indigenous to Africa which are created from wire and beads are definitely some of the most endearing of the recycled art from Africa. The animals include zebras, hippos and even chickens

A very beautiful piece of recycled art from Africa is the recycled metal candle maid with beaded skirt. Though this piece is a candleholder, the unique lines of this sculpture made from scrap metal are brilliant. The colorful beadwork against the rustic metal brings Africa to life with the stark contrast.

.