These images are of the collection I made for one of my projects from 2019. This project was part of brief to create work that we would aim to either enter into a live competition or would want to sell at the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair (GNCCF). As I chose the GNCCF I chose to carry on with developing my resin jewellery collection which I had started in the previous project. As this previous had been based on creating work influenced by art and design from the past, as well as taking inspiration from objects which I had personally collected or had been collected by fellow found object enthusiasts, I decided to take these inspirations and branch off to develop this new collection. With this new collection I was planning to develop, I also wanted take other aspects from this previous project: such as the notion of preserving items from the past that people had not only collective memories of but also personally ones as well, but this time I wanted to us a more modern theme as my main context.  This more modern theme being based around modern plastic toys and the notion of rekindling people's memories of these forgotten throw away toys and creating work which takes these unloved object and makes them more cherishable , as well as also creating work which tackles issues such as non-recyclable plastic waste - as well as tackling people's attitudes to the things they throw away.  With these ideas as my starting point I began collecting both objects and research into my chosen topics; initially collecting toys and plastic waste from the streets near where I was living at the time to gather materials to work with, and using books such as Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value by Michael Thompson and Thing Tang Trash: Upcyclying in Contemporary ceramics by Jorunn Vieteberg - as well as exploring books on sentimentality of jewellery-  specifically that of Victorian jewellery (as well as visiting Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter Museum to explore their workshop which are filled with machinery, tools, moulds etc. dating back to the Victorian Industrial Revolution) - also alongside this exploring the sentimentality of objects and our ever changing relationships with objects. Even though I had managed to collect plenty of useful research for this project, I was unable to source enough toys from my searches on the streets near where I was living - luckily I was able to find plenty of discarded childhood toys at my partners family house in the shed in their garden. From this find I was able to collect enough pieces to work with, and as many of these toys were modern ones like LEGO that plenty of people have fond memories of, I would be able to link these to my research especially that of Victorian sentimental jewellery to the modern context I was working with. After cleaning my finds and documenting them, I set to work planning and designing pieces I could create for my collection. During this designing process, I decided that I would not only use waste materials to add interest to my work (and also to show people how they could reuse their non recyclable waste as well as reuse objects that they or their family had fallen out of love with to make something else with that would hold fond memories and be something they would cherish), but that I would also use more precious materials such as sea glass and gold and silver leaf (to show people how they could also use more precious materials or things they'd collected to add even more meaning to whatever they planned to create with their unloved objects). With this decision in mind, I also decided that I would try to use some of my own non recyclable waste I had about my place of residence, to show that pretty much anything and everything could be upcycled to create imaginative and fun objects. Once these decisions were made, my designs were finished and I had selected which objects I wanted to work with, I set about making my moulds using liquid silicone. After the moulds were cured, I cleaned them and set about casting my objects - these included ones that I knew most people would have memories of playing with as a child such as: LEGO and K'NEX. With these casts I used my chosen materials which I had selected for each object, these materials included: gold glitter,  green packing peanuts, neoprene, man-made coloured sand, treated paper confetti, man-made resin dyes, pink and purple rubber balloons, pink and purple acetate sweet wrappers, gold and silver leaf and green shades of sea glass. Once the resin and encapsulated materials had been set and cured I chose my favourite ones, the ones which I believed people would have deeper connections with, such as the LEGO brick as well as ones which I believed people would have had in some form or another: the heart shaped glasses - may remind some of Barbie accessories they had  for their dolls and the flower - may remind some of toys, doll accessories,  childish plastic jewellery they once had or of those prank flower brooches that would squirt water at unsuspecting victims. I chose these objects to turn into jewellery, due to the fact that they each represented the different ways in which either preciousness and emotional or aesthetic value (the sea glass and gold/silver leaf) could be added to items that were being given a second chance or ways in which fun/interest could be added whilst also reducing people's non-recyclable plastic waste. I also chose these as I wanted to create a collection which was a contemporary take on sentimental jewellery, and that of Victorian sentimental jewellery, because I wanted use their ideas of jewellery which has both collective and personal sentimentality - but that I also wanted to use the idea of creating jewellery which is a bit different, a bit quirky, that people could give as gifts to loved ones to remind them of shared memories or keep as personal reminders of fond childhood memories.