Categories: Case Studies

DIY Christmas tree – Zero Waste Christmas 🎄

We know it can be hard at this time of the year to watch our spending and buying habits so we have put together a Zero Waste Christmas guide to help you reduce your waste during the festive period. In this post, we’re talking Christmas trees and encouraging you to create your own DIY Christmas Tree.

Did you know that around six million trees are thrown out after Christmas, creating more than 9,000 tonnes of waste? That is enough waste to stretch end to end from London to the North Pole and back!

Why not create your own upcycled wooden tree as an eco-friendly alternative?

We love this DIY Wooden Christmas tree, complete with old door handles for decorations. Freecyle, Freegle, Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree are good places to source unwanted and often free wood and handles – if you don’t already have any lying around.

The great thing about this eco-friendly wooden tree is that you can keep it for years. If you fancy a change, you can simply get your paintbrush out and repaint it a different colour.

[📸 Pillar Box Blue]

If you need paint, find your nearest Community RePaint scheme to pick up some affordable, reusable paint, starting from just £1 per litre.

If you are in the area, Community RePaint Loughborough are selling upcycled Christmas Pallet Trees, ready for you to take home and paint.  You can order a tree through their Facebook page and collect it when it’s ready.

[📸 Community RePaint Loughborough]

Read our other Zero Waste Christmas Guide blogs for more inspiration on how to be more environmentally conscious this Christmas, including DIY Christmas decoration ideas and greeting cards, wrapping alternatives and food waste minimisation.

Cheltenham Paint Festival uses recycled paint

Cheltenham Paint Festival Street Art, community mural

The Cheltenham Paint Festival is a free art trail, showcasing a wide range of high-quality artwork in various painting styles from national and international artists. This year, 125 artists attended to paint in 60 different locations around Cheltenham, providing a colourful 5-mile walk for locals and visitors.

The festival has been featured in The Times, The Telegraph and has been part of a 2-hour long feature on Sky Arts.

With the global pandemic ongoing, the festival organisers said it was more important than ever for the paint festival to go ahead, to brighten up the local community and bring some colour into people’s lives.

Cheltenham Paint Festival community mural

However, this year, like many festivals around the country, it was scaled back due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With a reduced festival budget, the organisers required low-cost paint.

Artist and Founder of the festival, Andy Davies, contacted Community RePaint to purchase 100 litres of affordable white paint to use at the festival. The central team passed the festival’s request onto Community RePaint Wirral, who was able to provide the festival with the paint at just £1 per litre, meaning it could still go ahead on a reduced budget.

Cheltenham Paint Festival Street Art, Earth, community mural

Community RePaint Wirral is one of the biggest schemes on the Community RePaint Network. In 2019, the scheme redistributed over 104,000-litres of leftover paint to individuals and groups in the community. They were very proud to be supporting the 2020 edition of the Cheltenham Paint Festival.

Andy, the festival founder, told us “The delivery was great, the driver went out of the way to get them across the garden and put them on the drive which was much appreciated. The paint itself was excellent and so useful.”

The local community appreciate the art around the town, providing some light in such dark times. You can view a full gallery of the 2020 artwork on the Official Cheltenham Paint Festival website.

Cheltenham Paint Festival, People Painting  Cheltenham Paint Festival, People Painting

Do you need affordable paint for an upcoming project? Find your nearest scheme here.

Community RePaint East London Help Brighten Leyton High Road

Leyton High Road, home to the vibrant community in Leytonstone, East London, has been transformed with a colourful and innovative design, with the efforts of local residents, residents and renowned artist Camille Walala.

Camille Walala is a London designer known for graphics, interiors and fabrics that feature bright colours and bold patterns. She is also renowned for her amazing power to spread positivity across the streets of London, having also created murals, building facades and other installations across the world. The addition to Leyton High Road has re-energised the urban landscape with an explosion of creativeness, colour and joy above the shops and cafes.

 

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The local community was at the heart of this project, with the artist inviting Londoners to help shape the final design by voting for their favourite colour scheme. The project, run by City Hall and Spacehive, was kickstarted with Crowdfunding, which began earlier in the year and the ambitious project was approved after it raised a total of £40,000 – including a £25,000 backing from Mayor of London Sadik Khan!

The artists involved in the project purchased paint from Community RePaint East London, who have been part of the Community RePaint Network since 1998 and collect over 40,000 litres of paint annually. The scheme is run by the Forest Recycling Project work to promote a greener, more inclusive Leyton and Waltham Forest.

 

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Community RePaint East London partner with recycling centres across London to collect reusable leftover paint from residents that would’ve otherwise gone to waste. They check the quality and quantity of the paint before taking it back to their premises, where they sell it to the local community at an affordable price. The scheme also collects reusuable paint locally from traders, retailers and manufacturers.

Reclaimed paint of all types – emulsions, paint for interior and exterior wood and metal, masonry paint and varnishes – are available in a variety of colours and container sizes from two locations, ‘The Paint Place Reuse Project’ in Leyton and their shop ‘The Paint Place’ in Walthamstow. Both locations have paint available for sale to individuals and groups. If you’re in need of affordable paint in East London, have a look at their opening times on their website.

 

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Together, we can divert more paint from waste and brighten up spaces across the whole of the UK. We have over 65 schemes where you can purchase affordable paint, starting from £1, for projects just like this one! Find your nearest scheme here.

Photographs by Tim Crocker and Walala Parade Leyton

Colourful “Bradford in Spires” Mural Brightens Up City

“Bradford in Spires” is the title of the new community mural featured at the Bradford Interchange. The mural features towers and spires from some of the city’s iconic landmarks, accompanied with bright colours to bring new life onto the former tired-looking walls.

The project was commissioned by “Bradford BID“, who work on projects to benefit the entire range of business sectors within central Bradford. The completed work has been marked with a plaque, which thanks Sven for his hard work, as well as thanking Community RePaint for their donation of leftover paint to the project.

Sven collaborated with Community RePaint Bradford, who supplied the local artist with leftover paint. The paint had been collected from manufacturers, retailers, traders in the area, as well as from the district’s recycling centres where residents can drop off leftover paint.  The paint was checked to ensure it was suitable for reuse rather than disposed of. Since signing up to the Community RePaint Network in 2001, Community RePaint Bradford has collected over 45,000 litres of paint each year!

Due to the large amount of paint the scheme collects, they always have a large variety of paint types and colours. If you want paint for your home or for a community project, you can make an appointment to go along during their opening hours to choose some paint. They sell the paint for £1.50 per litre. Find all of the details of the scheme here.

Before:

After:

Can you recognise any of the iconic Bradford landmarks?

The mural includes Penny Bank, City Hall, the Wool Exchange, the Bradford College Old Building, Lister’s Mill, the Alhambra, Bradford Live, Eastbrook Hall, the Bradford Gurdwara, Bradford Cathedral and Bradford Central Mosque.

Sven Shaw is a freelance illustrator who specialises in cityscapes, maps and local interest illustrations. You can check out his other amazing and colourful work on his website here!

Are you planning a project to brighten up your local city?

You can find paint at one of our 65+ schemes across the UK. Find your nearest scheme here!

Painted Home Featuring the Iconic Somerset Glatonbury Tor

South West based artist MADE by Rosie designed and painted an incredible mural on a Somerset resident’s home, featuring the iconic Glastonbury Tor. The mural was commissioned by a resident who wanted a mural painted on their bungalow to brighten up the previous grey rendered wall.

Painted home in Glastonbury featuring a mural of the Glastonbury Tor

The mural includes the resident’s pets (4 adorable dogs and 1 beautiful bearded dragon), the local peacock legend – Kevin, the teapot from the band Gong and the flying pig from Pink Floyd.

The mural can be seen from the Strawberry Line cycle path near Yatton in Somerset.

Painted home in Glastonbury featuring a mural of the Glastonbury Tor

The paint was sourced from Community RePaint Bristol South. The scheme is run by Re:work, a Bristol charity established to relieve poverty, advance education and promote and provide training in South Bristol. Part of their work includes reusing materials, which is where the Community RePaint scheme fits in.

The scheme sells full and part-full tins of paint which have been donated from local traders and manufacturers and starts at just £1 per litre!

Painted home in Glastonbury featuring a mural of the Glastonbury Tor

Wythenshawe joined by superhero paint volunteers

Dr Brian McConnell, CEO of Hydrock Consultancy, and his team of 20 superhero volunteers from Bristol drove up to the Tree of Life Centre in Wythenshawe to transform the charity’s previously tired-looking display rooms.

The volunteers worked tirelessly to decorate the rooms, reusing leftover paint that the centre had in stock from being part of the Community RePaint scheme.

Group of paint volunteers at Community RePaint Wythenshawe

The Tree of Life Centre aims to build sustainable and resilient families for now, for the future. They run a second-hand furniture shop, which they are renowned for, providing an opportunity for those in the local deprived community to be able to afford good quality furniture.

They are hosts of our Community RePaint scheme. They collect paint locally from traders, retailers and manufacturers. Paint is available for individuals and groups to purchase for £1-2 per litre.

Paint volunteers with staff at Community RePaint Wythenshawe

Here are a few words from the Tree of Life Centre:

“It comes as no surprise that their company is renowned for being one of the best companies to work for.

A very big thank you for supporting us as we work to minimise the impact on landfill and supporting local families. Your support will improve our offer to our community, improving wellbeing and making sure families do not go without life’s basic essentials.

A special thanks to Richard from the Hale office, for his enthusiasm and project management to ensure everything ran so smoothly.”

Paint volunteers at Community RePaint Wythenshawe Paint volunteers at Community RePaint Wythenshawe

Upcycling Furniture in Loughborough 🖌️♻️

Upcycling is a sustainable and cost-effective alternative to buying new furniture. You can take the opportunity to upcycle the 10 million household items that are sent to landfill every year, reusing paint from the 50 million litres wasted every year in the UK, to give items a new breath of life.

The Exario Reuse Project, who host our Loughborough RePaint scheme, collect paint locally from the nearby Household Waste and Recycling Centre, traders, retailers and manufacturers. They sell on this paint, but also use it for their own upcycling projects.

Team photo of staff based at Community RePaint Loughborough holding containers of paint.

 

 

 

You can follow their ’20 Days of Upcycling’ on their Facebook page. You can also keep up to date on their inspiring projects on their Instagram page.

Here are a few of our favourite upcycling projects from Exario Reuse Project – maybe you can take some inspiration and start your own upcycling project by picking up some reusable paint from one of our 65+ schemes!

Before upcycling photo of chest of drawers - showing brown wood veneer. After upcycling chest of drawers - painted bright pink.

They have transformed this vintage chest of draws into a statement piece, using a bold shade of pink paint.

Before upcycling photo of chest of drawers - showing brown wood veneer. After upcycling photo of chest of drawers - the sides have been polished and the drawers have been painted dark blue/grey.

They’ve simply given this drawer a new breath of life by painting the draws a gorgeous dark blue and varnishing the wood work.

Before upcycling photo of bureau - showing brown wood veneer. After upcycling photo of bureau - painted like grey/mushroom.

Framing key parts of the furniture with a complimentary colour can really make it stand out! These two shades of grey are contrasting each other beautifully.

Before upcycling photo of dining table and chairs in pine. After upcycling photo of dining table and chairs - the table top is polished pine, and the chairs/table legs are painted light grey.

Beautifully upcycled and reupholstered these table and chairs, also swapping the tabletop for a gorgeous solid wood top – it’s really been transformed.

The Exario Reuse Project provide temporary supported accommodation and holistic service to single adults that are homeless. Their reuse project, including their Community RePaint scheme, provides work-based training to all of their residents, helping them to become economically independent in the future.

A simple set of painting tip videos to help you decorate

We’ve worked with our scheme in Bradford to create a series of painting tip videos telling you everything you need to know before starting a decorating project. From whether to use a brush or roller to which type of paint to use, we tap into Karen’s knowledge which is gained from years of decorating properties.

Which paint should you use for walls

Which paint should you use for woodwork

How to prepare your walls before painting

Choosing the right roller

How to cut in

Painting with a roller

Using a new brush

Painting with a brush

How to cut in

How to paint a door

Saving brushes and rollers mid project

Like these videos? Watch more and subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

If you would like to purchase affordable paint you can find your nearest scheme here. Have a big project? If you need more than 60 litres you can order our remanufactured paint ReColour here.