a natural and mindful approach to family life

Scoping for the perfect bridal gown? Gabrielle Steberis suggests you try preloved

We think of many ways to upcycle, recycle or prelove. But when it comes to our wedding, do we still have those selfless ideologies?

I took it upon myself as a curious university student photographer, and an upcycle lover/environmental activist, to scope the second-hand shops of West Yorkshire and find a preloved bridal gown. The end goal was to conduct a bridal-styled photo shoot (without using a professional model) and to prove that preloved does not necessarily mean unloved!

I started out by paying a visit to my local charity shops. Surprisingly all three in the very small town of Batley stocked bridal gowns (which had me wondering how common it is for people to donate their wedding dresses to charity). I knew exactly what I was looking for – a sixties bohemian-inspired dress – and I challenged myself to find that dress specifically, as if it were for my own wedding.

After stumbling into the last charity shop, and six dresses later, I somehow found a dress EXACTLY styled to my preference! The dress had a late sixties counterculture vibe to it, with long, netted sleeves that covered the tops of the hands, a simple train that seemed as if it would swish and float as the bride walked, a very elegant faux button-up back that covered the zip, and warm orange beads and delicate embroidery on the front and back along the V neckline. I couldn’t believe it.

After realising that this was the dress for my ‘trial and error’ photo shoot, I discovered that the shop had reduced the price from £30 to £10 just to clear stock! Of course, the price shouldn’t matter much: it is giving to charity, after all. My thoughts are that this information is worth knowing for someone on a budget or not looking to spend too much at all on their wedding because the social aspects of the occasion hold far more importance for them.

When I got the dress home, I put it through a delicate wash to erase the familiar smell of ‘preloved’, and studied it again. It just would have seemed even MORE perfect if it hadn’t had a net sash across the front middle section, held in place with a net rose. So with my trusty scissors I snipped away at the stitching. The rose popped off, and then with a SWOOSH the sash floated away with it. It really was amazing to see the difference a small alteration could make!

On the day of the photo shoot I was excited to work with a previous client of mine, who turned out to be perfect and challenging to work with for this specific project. Because I wanted the shoot to be as close as possible to a real bridal portrait session such as I would usually do on a wedding day, a shy, reserved person was going to be exactly what I needed to achieve my overall goal. Lucy had only done one photo shoot with me before, and this was a lifestyle family shoot with her little boy. With no experience of modelling or taking direction from a professional photographer, she was very nervous.

I found that the dress suited her perfectly. Her slender figure allowed it to hang off her shoulders ever so slightly, which improved the overall look; she was very comfortable in the dress and found herself getting giddy and surprised at the fact that she liked it so much, especially since she knew where I had bought it and how much it had cost.

Lucy soon settled into the 45-minute shoot and found herself letting go and taking the minimal direction that I gave her very well. She held and swished the bottom of the dress, faced her back towards me as she gracefully walked up the stairs leading to the woods, and imagined herself as a sixties hippie girl in a fairy-tale dream. She definitely enjoyed the occasion.

When I asked her how she felt about wearing the dress, whether she felt comfortable, and whether she would wear it again, I found her attitude to it very positive.

The experience made me feel as If I had opened not only Lucy’s eyes to the preloved world, but also those of everyone who saw the dress and the final images. My advice, then, for anyone looking to try something different for their wedding, or even to save a few pennies, is to upcycle.

Gabrielle Steberis is a lifestyle wedding photographer. The full series of photos will soon be available to view. Enquire at gabriellesteberis@live.co.uk.

The Wheel of the Year with Glennie Kindred

The seasonal cycles create a framework of festivals that link us to the Earth and create opportunities for us to align our lives to its natural rhythm, writes Glennie Kindred

Quarter Points

At its simplest, the warmer longer days of Summer bring us out to communicate with each other and all life. It is a time for growth, being on the land and action. The colder and shorter days of Winter take us indoors and more inside of ourselves. It is a time to rest and renew our energy, to generate new ideas.

At their extremes, Summer and Winter are marked by the Summer Solstice (the shortest night and the longest day) and Winter Solstice (the longest night and the shortest day). The exact time and date vary slightly each year.

Spring and Autumn are between these extremes of high Summer and deepest Winter. The Spring Equinox and Autumn Equinox fall in the middle of the seasons of Spring and Autumn. They are the balance points when day and night are equal in length, when things are beginning to move fast. They act as a reminder to balance ourselves and prepare for the extremes of the next part of the cycle, be it Summer (outer growth) or Winter (inner growth).

We can use the seasonal cycle and work with the prevailing energy of the Earth to consciously create meaningful change in our lives. In the Autumn we celebrate our harvest and achievements, let go of the things we no longer need and prepare for Winter. Winter is the time to rest, regenerate and incubate the seeds that will bring life to the future. Spring is the time to begin new projects. During the Summer months we bring everything into flower and get things moving. Each season brings us a new set of possibilities. The choice is always ours to set clear intentions, to ask ourselves what we wish to change and how we wish to change… Then changes come rapidly.

These four fixed points in the year’s cycle are known as the Quarter Points and they form an equilateral cross. In the past this was combined with the symbol for the Sun (a circle with a dot in the middle) to form the ancient symbol for the Earth, an equilateral cross with a circle around it.

Cross-quarter Festivals

In between the four fixed seasonal heights lie four other points, the Cross-quarter Festivals of our ancient past. These mark the beginning of the seasonal energy-shifts. They are edge places, where one season is about to change into another. In the past they were revered and recognised as highly fertile times, power points in the year’s cycle. They were the four great fire festivals of Samhain, Imbolc, Beltain and Lammas, and celebrations would often last for several days or weeks. Community bonfires were lit on the high points and people would come together from miles around. The Cross-quarter festivals are not fixed by dates on the calendar. They are celebrated with an awareness of the Earth’s energy and the Moon’s cycle. Some people prefer to fix them with a calendar date for community gatherings. But, for me, they will always be moments of the intuitive edge, a shift in my energy and the Earth’s energy. Each year I find I have a sense of when the moment comes and I respond at a purely instinctual level to when it ‘feels’ right.

Samhain is recognised as a time when the outer growth cycle is over and the dark of Winter begins. Historically it is known to be a time when the veil between the worlds is thin, a time when we can learn from the ancestors and go within ourselves to seek inner guidance. It was overlaid as All Souls’ Day by the Christian Church and popularised as Halloween on 31 October.

Opposite Samhain on the wheel is Beltain, another edge place recognised as a time of ‘thin’ energy between the planes of existence. Here the Nature spirits are awakening and the energy pathways of the land are once again becoming active. This was seen as a time of high fertility when all of Nature is responding to the call of the wild spirit. This festival was overlaid by the Christian Church as May Day and celebrated on the morning of 1 May, complete with a virginal May Queen and thus defusing the wild potency of sexuality rising.

The other ‘arm’ of the Cross-quarter axis is created by Imbolc and Lammas (or Lughnasadh). Imbolc is recognised as a time of great potency when the Earth’s energy is beginning to awaken and we can access our own inner wisdom, which is rising from within us. It is a prime time for receiving inspiration and flashes of insight from our higher consciousness. It became overlaid as Candlemas by the Christian Church, and celebrated on 2 February.

Opposite Imbolc is Lammas, another edge place of heightened awareness as we spend more time outside in touch with the land and the Earth. It is a natural time to gather outside with friends, sit around fires, share the wisdom and knowledge we have gained in the summer cycle and assess who we are and what we want from life. In the past this was a time of community gatherings and the grain harvest, a time of fairs and feasting, and this is still a time of festivals and gatherings on the land. The calendar date for Lammas is 2 August, but for me its underlying power is to be found around the time of the full Moon.

Glennie Kindred writes about finding simple, heartfelt ways for us to make connections to each other, the Earth, Nature, the Elements and Spirits. www.glenniekindred.co.uk

First published in Issue 27 (Spring 2012) of JUNO:

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DON’T DISMISS WHAT GRANDMA DID – Caroline Taylor suggests we give reusable nappies a try and save £££

It’s time for a refreshing angle on nappies. The time is right. Environmental issues are finally gaining significant public support with everything from plastic bags to plastic straws getting the green treatment. Single Use / Disposable nappies are surely the next product to be targeted. A fact which seems to be confirmed by all the focus on Real Nappy Week which runs until Sunday, April 30.

The environmental cost of using disposable nappies is significant. One million tonnes of disposable nappies are being sent to UK landfill every year and each and every nappy takes an estimated 500 years to decompose. But it’s not just the eco-cost of using disposable nappies which is high. The financial cost to you as a parent is astronomical. With every child using between 4,000 and 6,000 nappies before they are potty trained, you could save money by switching to reusable nappies.

Despite many new parents knowing the cons of disposable nappies, there is still something that stops people from making that move to reusables. This is in large part because there is a real myth that this is a HUGE change that has to be made and from which there can be no turning back! This simply isn’t the case. Reusable nappies are something you can just give a try. See if they work for you. There need be no pressure, no judgement if they don’t suit you, but it’s worth just giving them a try for the eco and economic savings even if only part time use.

Reusables can be another tool to add to your nappy armoury! At home you can use reusables and for convenience when you’re on holiday or if you’re out and about, take disposals. This model makes reusables so much more accessible for the busy lifestyles of today’s mums and dads and makes it much more likely to people will use them. With the focus from Real Nappy Week it’s important to take this chance to stress the accessibility of using reusable nappies and how easy it is to just try them out.

Grandma was right about so many things; our current ‘make do and mend’ culture is testament to that and with our growing eco-awareness we are getting used to looking to the past for inspiration. Grandma used Terry Squares so don’t dismiss these. Terry Squares are very economical, quick to dry, easy and simple to use and there are the nifty alternatives to the pins that Grandma used available these days! A prefold nappy also offers a brilliant low budget reusable nappy that can be used with a modern cover.

I am adamant that trying out reusable nappies is the way to go. For this reason, at Muslinz, we won’t even sell a full kit to a mum-to-be at a baby show, instead we offer a trial kit which is enough for six changes and is the perfect way to try reusables and see if they work for you.

Much like breastfeeding, reusable nappies are something to try out to see if they fit you and your baby. If they make life with your new-born easier, are more comfortable for them, are cheaper for your purse strings, and give you that eco-friendly glow; then great!

Caroline Taylor is Managing Director from leading baby accessories specialist MerryGoRoundUK, which manufactures the popular brand, Muslinz, who supply both Terry Squares and prefold nappies

Why Choose Organic Cotton?

Lisa Ingram explains what inspired her to set up a business focused on organic cotton.

I feel passionately about getting the message out to people about the benefits of using organic cotton, not just because it’s softer and more durable (as the fibres haven’t been broken down by pesticides), but mainly because it’s SO much better for the environment than ordinary cotton, and better for the people who pick and sew it, many of whom suffer from horrible respiratory diseases as a result of their work amongst the toxic non-organic version of this crop. Organic cotton farms are necessarily smaller and more diversified, as this helps reduce pests and keeps soils healthier. As a result, the farmers are able to grow food for their families and are more protected from price fluctuations and crop failure. By eliminating the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilisers, organic cotton helps to keep waterways and drinking water safer and cleaner. Organic cotton farming also uses less energy and healthy organic soils store more carbon, thus helping to combat climate change. Take a look at www.cottonedon.org, a joint Soil Association/GOTS campaign.

It’s shocking that the cotton which most of us use and wear every day – which we think of as a ‘natural’ and therefore ‘good’ fabric – is actually incredibly bad for the environment and the people who work with it.

With allergies seeming to be ever more common these days, it’s also good to know that, with organic cotton, what you’re putting next to your baby’s skin, and your own, is as gentle and chemical-free as possible.

How did LittleLeaf come about? Fed up with office politics and a long commute into London, my husband Philip quit his job in search of a better life/work balance and, with four school-age children at home, we started searching for a business we could work at together. We really love the superb quality of organic cotton and its environmental and social benefits and thought there must be lots of other people out there who would love it too. We also believe it’s a market that will continue to grow, just as the market for organic food has. So, with the Soil Association’s startling statistic that non-organic cotton uses 16% of the world’s total pesticide use, making it “the world’s dirtiest crop” ringing in our ears, we set about designing LittleLeaf babywear. We now also supply beautifully made organic cotton pillowcases and sheets up to Superking size. We would love to expand our range in the future, maybe producing organic cotton t-shirts for children and adults, towels and more baby items.

We work from home designing our garments and prints, which are then sewn up into baby grows, blankets and muslins by factories in India registered by GOTS – that’s the Global Organic Textile Standard, linked to our own Soil Association here in the UK. This ensures not only that the garments are totally pesticide-free, but also that high employment standards are upheld and workers are treated decently. In countries like India where this, sadly, is not always the case, it’s really important to support those people there who are trying to do things differently. Always look for the GOTS logo on clothing, which tells you that these stringent organic and ethical standards are being put into practice.

Many of our designs are inspired by the natural countryside around us. For example, very early on we looked around our rural garden and took photographs of leaves, which then became the basis of LittleLeaf’s first design, ‘Leaf Collection’ and features on baby grows and blankets. All our designs are unisex, inadvertently tapping into a movement that has been in the news quite a lot recently! We’ve just been given the ‘Let Clothes Be Clothes’ Award, a campaign against stereotyping through clothes. As parents of a boy followed by three girls, the old pink/blue stereotypes have always seemed unnecessarily limiting to us. The unisex principle also chimes perfectly with the eco nature of our brand, since our clothes can be passed from sister to brother and re-used over and over again – something that’s also made possible by the famed durability of organic cotton. We also aim to make clothes that are consciously colourful, since unisex doesn’t have to mean just plain creams and greys!

We found it surprisingly hard to find packaging made from 100% recycled paper, but we’ve now sourced this, along with recycled/recyclable branded paper tape, stickers and compostable ribbon to enhance our gift wrapped parcels. We even have our own bespoke wrapping paper printed with vegetable inks and uncoated, making it completely recyclable too – unusual for wrapping paper. We use rubber stamps to brand our smart brown paper carrier bags and mailing bags and, as LittleLeaf is very much a family business, our 11-year-old daughter is Head of Stamping, whilst our 17- and 14-year-olds are teaching us a thing or two, as Joint Heads of IT and Social Media!

It’s been a long process from the germ of the idea for LittleLeaf to actually having our own designs to sell. Sometimes it’s been hard living and working together 24/7, and tough living amongst boxes of stock and packaging piled all over the house. But it’s also fun and we’ve learnt so much over the last two years. Best of all, it’s great having products we’re really proud of, that are kinder on your skin and better for the environment!

Lisa Ingram

www.littleleaforganic.com