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20 OLD-FASHIONED Christmas IN THE WOODS
Jackie Way
#111
#147
MynameisJackieWayandI am the creator and designer, and the “WAY’, behind “up and a WAY designs”. When I’m not working as a full-time “science geek” I can be found upcycling coffee bean sacks into one of a kind, handcrafted burlap baskets, wine totes, tote bags, and home decor in my home in Pittsburgh, PA.
I started “up and a WAY designs” in 2016 when a friend started working for a coffee roaster. She couldn’t believe how they were just trashing these great bags that the beans came in. I asked her to save me one to see what I could come up with and she brought me TEN! I started to play with them and “up and a WAY designs” was born.
Every coffee sack I handle begins its life on a coffee plantation as a practical shipping container and typically ends its life discarded as a piece of trash. I look past the mundane aspects of an old, sometimes dirty and ripped, burlap sack and I see a beautiful new canvas to design and create an
original work of art. Every sack is unique with beautiful prints, graphics and logos that come from a variety of far away places. I arrange the original graphics and printing as the central design on my bags and baskets and I use the leftover plain scraps of burlap to construct my wine totes, mini baskets, and home decor items. In addition to upcycling the burlap from the coffee bean sacks, many of the linings and accent fabrics I choose for my designs are fabrics recycled from past project leftovers or donated remnants.
The entire premise of my business is a concept I learned years ago in Girl Scouts, to “Leave the world a better place than you found it.” I love designing, creating, and refashioning these trashed sacks into a treasure that is not only new and beautiful, but useful and sustainable too. I hope you will join me in seeing the beauty of upcycling trash into treasures and leaving the world a better place.
Stop by and see me at booth #4.
Turning Coffee Sacks into Sustainable Treasures