Fresh Heirlooms will be highlighted in an upcoming issue of the green-spirited national publication, Boho Magazine. Check back soon!
November 12, 2008
Fresh Heirlooms is featured on the cover ofPittsburgh City Paper's Holiday Guide issue! Stop by the store or pick up your copy to see our custom vases created from reclaimed wine bottles, reused newspaper poinsettias, and repurposed wine-cork pine cones!
Conveniently Green: Local Artist Turns Trash To Treasure
Watch Fresh Heirloom's TV debut on Channel 4's "Conveniently Green".
POSTED: 3:25 pm EDT October 23, 2008
PITTSBURGH -- Shoppers at a Lawrenceville store might be surprised to see things like old plates and lamps turned from trash into treasure. Everything in Fresh Heirlooms is unique -- and recycled or reused. The store is a potpourri of products. For example, what used to be an old Subway Sandwich shop sign has now been made into a desk.
"This was a wine bottle that was cut in half, and then the top was flipped over and heat-sealed on the bottom, to create a really neat drinking vessel," said Lindsay Woge, the store's owner.
Woge's functional artwork includes bicycle chain bowls, pop can planes and flowers made from old phone books.
"If you look closely, you can see the writing on the petals. Definitely a great use from something we otherwise throw away," Woge said.
Along with being the owner of the store, Woge is also an artist who creates many of the items she sells in her earth-friendly store. "I love the twisting and turning. I love looking at something and thinking 'What can I do with this?'" Woge said.
Woge has created a bottle cap sunburst mirror, bowls woven from telephone wires and outdoor rugs that won't rod. "They are designed to go outside and you can dump a bucket of soapy water and they can be hosed off. They are made from recycled plastic," said Woge.
Every week there's something new in the store that once was old. "Sometimes I'll get here in the morning and their will be bags on my doorstep, and you never know what is in them. It can be exciting. It can be scary," Woge said.
LUX Magazine says, "Fresh Heirlooms loves their customers." Read the whole article below.
Click above and scroll to page 22 to read about Fresh Heirlooms in the October 2008 issue of Lux Magazine.
Lawrenceville girls gain confidence through tools and art
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania- September 18, 2008 - An eight-year-old girl straps on her tool belt, adjusts her goggles
and approaches the sanding block. Nearby, a 10-year-old girl navigates a power drill. The instructor looks on, assisting the girls when they need help with their screwdrivers, levels, pliers or power tools.
For the six girls participating in Pitt Small Business Development Center client Lindsay Woge’s Give Girls Tools
program, this is just another day of artful fun.
Woge, founder of Fresh Heirlooms on Butler Street in Lawrenceville, launched Give Girls Tools this summer to teach
young women to use tools and hone practical art skills, with the greater goals of giving them more confidence in
math, science and everyday living.
A group of six Lawrenceville girls, ranging in age from 8 to 11, meet at Fresh Heirlooms every Tuesday, Wednesday
and Thursday morning throughout August to practice making art with power tools. Woge herself uses these skills to
transform reclaimed materials into one-of-a-kind home furnishings, office furniture, handmade green gifts, and ecofriendly
home décor.
“A lot of these skills are basic homeowner skills,” Woge explained. “If these girls grow up to be able to repair their
own faucets, that will be a benefit.”
The idea for Give Girls Tools has been a long time coming. While working at the Chicago Children’s Museum, Woge,
who has a background in arts, found herself teaching simple machines and developing scientific curricula. Through
this experience, she came to appreciate the “melding of science and art.”
“I wanted to empower girls to do the things guys are traditionally trained to do,” said Woge, an artist who admitted
that she has sometimes found math and science to be a bit more intimidating than other subjects.
“The girls are not intimidated at all” by the tools, Woge added.
Woge has also organized visits with the girls to other women-owned businesses on Butler Street.
“I want to show them not only what women can do, but what other women are doing right down the street,” she said.
Woge is working with the University of Pittsburgh Small Business Development Center to continue building her
business in ways that empower and strengthen the members of her Lawrenceville community.
Emotional Rescue: Creating Heirlooms from Trash
Fresh Heirlooms featured in EcoSalon, September 11, 2008
A salvaged light fixture becomes a stylish tabletop candle holder; a used vinyl receptacle mount is fitted with Plexiglas to create a one-of-a-kind wall frame. There's also a fruit bowl crafted from reclaimed United Airlines knives that have been mounted onto scrap wood.
These are a few of the items one might find during a visit to Fresh Heirlooms in Pittsburgh, Penn, where most of the works are handmade from reclaimed materials diverted from the local landfill.
Consider it "historic and environmental preservation coupled with progressive social responsibility, sophisticated artfulness, and multi-faceted meaning,” says their website, which also sells a handful of work. An online gallery displays creations of local artists. In addition to their showroom, Fresh Heirlooms also hold creative reuse workshops for both adults and kids so you can expand your creativity and your functional art collection.
With a little guidance, even the most artistically-challenged can see how great Aunt Harriet's old candle snuffer can soon be a revived treasure.
The Link: Lindsay Woge
By Jodi Weigand
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Read article in TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Lindsay Woge says she comes from a family of
tinkerers. She grew up near Sharon, and, from an early age,
she was building things "out of junk," she says. She
combined her interest in art, teaching, the environment and
putting old things to new use and opened Fresh Heirlooms in
October. She sells reused and recycled household items -- from
goblets she sandblasts herself to a desk she made from an old
Subway restaurant sign. She tells us what's so inspiring about
stuff headed to the landfill.
Question: What made you want to sell reused
and recycled furnishings?
Answer: I was working at the Chicago Children's
Museum, which I loved, but it was a very hands-off kind of job.
I was writing curriculum, and I had a cubicle, and it was just
maddening. Also, through my work at the Peace Museum, I started
to become more aware of different social and environmental issues,
and I felt like I could get out of my cubicle and I could also
help to promote social and environmental causes if I opened
a store like this.
Q: Why Pittsburgh?
A: There was such a positive vibe that I felt
about Pittsburgh. When I left the city years ago, I felt like
it was so different than it is today. I felt like there were
a lot of businesses that were closing and young people were
leaving, and now I feel like it's the opposite. I thought it
was a good time to come back to the city. And it's an affordable
city -- I could never do this in Chicago.
Q: What do you like most about what you do?
A: I think my favorite part is just the problem
solving. What I call my store is a creative reuse showroom,
and so just the words are really what excites me. So just thinking
about the possibilities. I love taking something and twisting
and turning it and thinking about it a new way. I think that's
why I like having my own store -- I can do what I want. I like
the freedom of using whatever comes my way.
Q: Did you like to tinker with things as a child?
A: My favorite thing was building doll houses
out of junk. I remember building Kleenex box doll houses. My
absolute favorite thing was reading this book about all these
different little doll house furniture pieces you could make
out of stuff from your house. My favorite one of all time -
they had a marble and they put a toothpaste cap on it to make
a lamp so the toothpaste cap was the shade and the marble was
the base. So I guess I've always liked stuff like that.
Q: Is your house filled with reused stuff, too?
A: No. I actually live with my sister, but I
stay at the store most of the time. I pretty much live where
I work.
Q: What's a Fresh Heirloom?
A: There's no funny story behind that.
I was in Chicago, and I asked (my friends) what do you think
about Fresh Heirlooms? And they were like, 'What, are you selling
produce?' But I just went with it. I like it. I think it's kind
of cute. I think once you're in the store you understand what
I'm driving at.
Creative Reuse Workshops for Blind and Vision Rehabilitation
Services of Pittsburgh
July 2008, Fresh Heirlooms
Blind and Vision Rehabilitation Services of
Pittsburgh and Fresh Heirlooms, a retailer of creatively
reused home furnishings, are pleased to announce a July
partnership.
Each week in July, four enrollees in Blind and
Vision Rehabilitation Services’ Community Transition Program
will travel to Fresh Heirlooms’ Lawrenceville store and creative reuse workshop to participate
in hands-on projects designed to meld the two organizations’ missions: to transform reclaimed materials into unique eco-friendly
home furnishings and to reduce limitations that may result from
loss of vision.
One of many services offered through Blind and Vision Rehabilitation
Services, the Community Transition Program provides life-long
learning opportunities to persons that have severe developmental
delays. This program was established in 1993 initially to serve
persons with cognitive impairments that were being transitioned
from state centers to the community.
In line with Fresh Heirlooms’ commitment
to people and planet, the July program hopes to provide participants
with opportunities to work with a variety of atypical materials
– those usually bound for the landfill -- in new ways,
while socializing and interacting in a new setting and neighborhood.
Participants will spend the four two-hour sessions creating
items to be used in the facility’s Homestead kitchen --
a familiar scene, as part of the group’s daily schedule
includes taking part in the preparation and clean-up of meals.
Shannon Woge, the program’s Team Leader,
believes the program is an opportunity for participants to play
an active role in shaping the spaces they use each day, while
developing their cognitive and social skills and reducing environmental
impact : “This is a priceless opportunity to expose our
participants to the idea of completing the projects they enjoy
in a more earth-friendly way."
Projects planned include using reclaimed materials
to screen-print on aprons fabricated by visually impaired workers
at Blind and Vision Rehabilitation Services’ Industries,
located on the Northside. The participants will also be creating
"green" place-mats, place-settings, herb container
gardens, and more, all from recycled, repurposed, and second-hand
sources.
Fresh Heirlooms is located at 5218 Butler St.
in Lawrenceville. Summer hours are Wednesday through Friday,
1 – 6PM, Saturday 12 – 4PM. Learn more at www.FreshHeirlooms.com
or by calling 412.512.5098. Information about Blind and Vision
Rehabilitation Services of Pittsburgh is available at www.pghvis.org.
Spotlight: Fresh Heirlooms
May 6, 2008, 16:62 Design Zone
Fresh Heirlooms' owner Lindsay Woge is thrilled
to highlight her collection of creatively reused furnishings
this Mother's Day. Maybe that's because her shop includes items
hand-crafted by almost every member of her family--including
her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother.
"My great grandmother would be tickled
if she saw what I was doing now," says Lindsay. "The
mindset during her era was to never throw anything away."
And she didn't. Lindsay's mother has taken her
grandmother's old buttons and sewn them into napkin rings. In
the shop, the napkins are placed on vintage plates arranged
around a creative cake pedestal (made from second-hand dishes)
and glasses made from reclaimed wine bottles. The setting sits
on a vintage table Lindsay repainted to pair with four reclaimed
chairs.
"I love that you can see the old paint
underneath the new paint," says Lindsay."You can actually
see the history."
Fresh Heirlooms is a shop full of heirlooms.
Lindsay's grandfather has created a fruit basket by attaching
old butter knives (from United Airlines found at a thrift store)
to a scrap-wood base. Lindsay's father installed the shop's
lighting and also helps her with custom projects. When you're
ready to check out, your items will be placed in a bag made
from material sewn together by her grandmother.
Inspired? Book a small group class with your
friends to learn how to reuse items you may have otherwise neglected.
Or attend one of Lindsay's public workshop like "Magnets
for May" (below).
This summer, Lindsay is also coordinating a
series of workshops titled "Give Girls Tools." Funded
by Operation Weed and Seed, the project is intended to unite
young girls and teach them how to build and repair reclaimed
items--with the goal of building their self-esteem and ability
to create their own projects. For more information, call or
email Lindsay at 412.512.5098 or Lindsay@FreshHeirlooms.com.
Eco-friendly Magnets for May
Decorate your fridge with eco-magnets you can make from
reclaimed washers gathered from this year's Art All Night
event (donated by the hardworking volunteer crew).
Drop by between 6 and 8 p.m. on Friday,
May 9 and Friday, May 23 for this free mini-workshop.
Limit two magnets per participant. Refreshments provided.
Images top: the interior of Fresh Heirlooms
with the table setting of reused materials. Image below: a sample
of the magnets you could make at one of the free upcoming creative
reuse workshops!
'Light' Soft Drink
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February, 2008
Beth Adamson, of Kingston, Ontario, makes a
lantern out of a recycled soft drink can yesterday. Ms. Adamson
attended a free workshop at Fresh Heirlooms in Lawrenceville
druing her visit to Pittsburgh. Fresh Heirlooms is a store that
specializes in creatively reused furnishings for the home. Owner
Lindsay Woge opened the store at the end of October and frequently
holds free craft workshops to get people interested in the store.
Read a pdf
of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette piece on Fresh Heirloom's creative
reuse workshops.
