Photos and text by Jerrey Roberts via The Daily Hampshire Gazette
Everyday waste materials, like newspapers, magazines, sheet music, calendars and discarded book pages, were given new life last week during a workshop using the Japanese paper art of kusudama, given by Amber Ladley of South Hadley, at the Westhampton Public Library.
At the workshop, 15 women crafted flowers, picking from a wide range of stock brought by Ladley to create the petals. They added bamboo sticks or straws to fashion a stem, and finished their flowers with a shank button or bottle cap to represent the stigma.
A web designer by trade, Ladley has been crafting since childhood and started giving upcycling workshops about four years ago. She co-founded Knack, the Art of Clever Reuse, a store in the Eastworks Building in Easthampton.