We call what we do magic but each potion has many ingredients so we wanted to disclose the source of magic 🙂

Our major source for discarded textile materials is monthly meetings of older sista’s local group named after their Facebook group: Your Trash, My Treasure. Senin Çöpün, Benim Hazinem in Turkish.

At first, this was a small group of friends living in Datça, handing surplus craft materials to each other. Later, others joined and the group grew in size and geography; they started meeting at local cafes to exchange their suspiciously strange packages: yarn balls, broken china, seedlings in small pots and lots of inspiration for each other’s projects. Then they decided to make it official and started a Facebook group for the growing numbers of members and hold a in-person event in the spacious terrace of a restaurant in Datça. Their first meeting even got the attention of local media 🙂

Since May 2019 (with some small breaks due to lockdown measures) they gather on first Saturday of each month which also the town market day. You can see the happiness in the faces of the members who like the idea of this free of charge exchange; they do not barter, they simply bring to the meeting the craft materials they want to get rid of and take home the craft materials they want to use.

So, we can say that the some ingredients of our magic are the rejuvenating breeze of Datça, the empowering friendship, freely given inspirational ideas, and the joy of sharing.

Do you have such local groups in the area you live? If you don’t, please start one. The more, the merrier when the aim is recycling and upcycling. Our world needs more of the kind of magic we do.

What is your own source of magic? Tell us, tell us!