recycled toy jewellery: dinosaur ring

I just finished making this for my friend's birthday. I don't think it's very practical, but it was fun to make and paint. Dayglo orange with nu-rave multicolored tiger stripes.



This is how it started life - as a small plastic heterodontosaurus from the Brick Lane car boot sale:



You can see more photos of it if you're interested here on Flickr.

I might try to make more and sell them on Etsy, but they are dreadfully time consuming and fiddly.

middlesex filter beds, capital ring

I thought I would take a moment to big up the Middlesex filter beds in NE London. Near Hackney Marshes/Clapton kind of way.

Because its made of regular shaped, stone walkways, with a big circle in the middle and iron pump switches at regular places on the edge of the circle, it looks like a video game level. Very mysterious and cool. The kind of game where you run around big stone levels, pressing switches to make stone blocks move and water flow. Which is in fact what those switches used to do when the filter beds were operational.



I highly recommend checking them out if you're in East London. There a big route you can follow called the Capital Ring - which is a walking/cycling route all the way around zone 3ish London - about 105 miles in all.


I find this sign really inspiring. Crystal Palace all the way to Richmond on one footpath.