Dear Mummy, we love crafting and creating, so anything with a make-do and mend approach is great for us. So I was super excited to be invited down to Bunnings Warehouse in Basingstoke to attend a workshop with TV presenter and Upcycler Max McMurdo. I had lots of fun on my daddy daughter day as mummy was off at BlogOnX, a bloggers event in Manchester. The weather was perfect and it was the ideal excuse for daddy to go to a DIY store!
Bunnings Warehouse has recently taken over the old Homebase site in Basingstoke and its bigger and better than ever! With a super cool layout inside, including a cafe and a play area for kids the warehouse has thought of everything! Children can play while parents take turns to shop and have a coffee. We can see why Bunnings Warehouse is so popular in Australia and why they have landed on our shores.
Bunnings Warehouse also put on fun activities and events for families and we were invited along to an upcycling workshop in a double decker promotional bus, equipped with workman’s benches, a funky interior and a lovely seating area outside! The staff were as always welcoming, friendly and receptive to our questions which is always lovely to see.
It wasn’t what we expected at all and we were pleasantly surprised. We’ve visited at Christmas and Halloween before, as we live just around the corner and love the effort they put into those events with crafting, competitions and themed activities. But this was educational and fun for the whole family. Daddy has already made a number of trips to Bunnings and never returns empty handed!
The workshop happened on the tour bus and I was guided through a lesson to make a copper hanging planter made out of old copper pipes, similar to those that you would find in your house. Luckily daddy wasn’t the one making it this time! He doesn’t have a good track record with pipes or flowers so the 2 together could have been a disaster.
I had 1-2-1 help and guidance from Max himself and he was really great with children. Explained what I needed to do and we counted together when measuring how much pipe was needed which was quite educational as well.
Max is a British Designer who first came to peoples’ attention in 2007 when he appeared on BBC2’s Dragon’s Den. Since then he has gone on to work with George Clarke and Kirstie Allsopp. He is incredibly passionate about driving the ‘upcycling’ message across the UK, encouraging all of us to make use of everyday items that typically end up in landfill. It’s amazing what we could actually re-purpose, which has a big impact on our environment. Mummy and Daddy equally try to impart this message on me as well as our planet is fragile and it is important we little ones have a sustainable world to live in when we grow up.
After 30-40 minutes on the bus we had a lovely keepsake which now hangs from our cherry tree as a wonderful reminder of what we can do if we try at any age. The copper pipe will over time age and turn a beautiful green and we put a sweetpea in the middle which will hopefully grow around the pipe as well.
Do you like what I’ve made? What have you made recently?
Love Bella x
Disclaimer: We were invited down to Bunnings Warehouse to share our review with you all. We were offered a fab goody bag in return for our time.
dearmummyblog.com 
What a fun day and what a brilliant idea 🙂 Hopefully our local Bunnings will run one
The plant hanger is a pretty cool idea to make on a Saturday, as a DIY project in the family. You can plant a flower in it and then watch it as it grows day by day. 🙂
What a fab day and such an important message to teach our children. Upcycling is so important these days!
I love upcycling projects. If only there were a few more hours in the day 🙂
What a great idea! We’re also big fans of upcycling and my children would love an opportunity like this. That copper planter is lovely and will bring back so many memories as it ages over time.
Oh wow, what a super project to get involved with – love that plant hanger! I’ll have to show this to my kids – they’ll want to make one too!
What a lovely idea. and super cool result. In South Africa, we would be so lucky to have this not only a fun experience but definitely memory making.
That looks like such a great event and I love that it was on a upcycled bus. I really want to get more into up-cycling I have a toy chest that I want to re cover as my first little starter project.
We’ve been inspired to do more upcycling, we just needed a little push x
wow Bella, That is really pretty. This sounds like a fun idea
What a fantastic idea! That bus looks really cool! We are big on upcycling in our home 🙂
Love an upcycle project ! Well done for getting your kids involved and it actually looks amazing what they made!
This is a great way to teach kids to generate less waste and maximize the potential of something they bought years ago. I think it’s really beautiful and I also love the items that you purchased!
I must have missed this on Dragon’s Den but what a great initiative. I love what your daughter made too. We waste so much these days, don’t we?
I like the sound of a workshop on a tour bus. Need to keep an eye on our waste. Less waste is the way to go.
That must have been so much fun for you. What a lovely idea, you can make so many great items upcycling.
What a great idea for a daughters father day! Seems like they had a lot of fun 🙂
This looks like such a fab day out. I love upcycling it’s such a great way to revamp old pieces
Oh, that is such a great activity idea for kids. and that little girl is so pretty.
Looks like a fab time spent working on something worthwhile. I’m also into upcylcing!
Oh what a lovely activity to do, we don’t up cycle things enough anymore. I love the copper hanger and it will look amazing outside
This is such a great activity, and a good one for kids to get in to from a young age too.
This sounds amazing, not only was it a fun day out but also you must’ve learnt a lot from upcylcing,
Hubby works for Bunnings although his shop is still a Homebase at the moment. We are always popping into to do activities
Love a bit of upcycling and turning trash into treasure. We tend to buy secondhand unless it comes to food. #bigpinklink
What a fantastic idea!!! I love that you can make things and recycle all at the same time. Anything that reduces the strain on our environment is fantastic in my eyes. Thank you for joining #BigPinkLink