I recently went to the TV Week Logies with dear Costa, representing the wonderful Gardening Australia. While we didn’t win our category, we did have a lot of fun celebrating gardening.

Costa Georgiadis and I on the red carpet! Yes, he does fit perfectly in my armpit nook.

We also had a lot of fun getting ready. Costa found most of his outfit in a local op shop while I hired a frock, wore my gardening boots and made a fancy clutch from cardboard and material.

Fancy clutch in action

Polished gardening boots in action – look good and wonderfully comfortable.

But back to that clutch. It’s made from an old cardboard box we pulled out of our recycling bin. While I started to make it myself, Anton got excited and took over – of which I was very grateful as he is craft master in our house! The first thing it did was to cut the box down to the exact shape/size I wanted and  secured it with staples.

He then used it as a guide to cut out the right amount of material that we needed to cover the whole thing. I had been holding onto this hot pink retro material for over 10 years, waiting for the right thing to use it for. This was its moment to shine.

Next, he folded the material over the box and did a combination of sewing and gluing (with PVA wood glue) to secure it on. Excuse the lack of photos showing the steps – I didn’t take any, these are screen grabs from a video and reel I made for Instagram, which you can see here. 

Anton also sewed a discrete little clip onto it to keep it shut. What a talent his is.

The finished product was actually really strong, functional and we think looked super rad. I had some fun moments at the Logies when people complemented me on the clutch and showing them it was made of cardboard – a great ice breaker! Fashion can be a little crazy at times – it’s refreshing to reclaim it and make it your own!