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Recycled 3D Arpillera Art

Our Arpillera art quilt collection represents over seven years of close collaboration between top Peruvian arpillera artists and designer Alessandra Bravo. Lucuma Designs proudly presents the best arpilleras made today.

In Peru, as in most of the developing world, hardly anything goes to waste, so its no surprise recycling is part of their culture. What is amazing though is how creative artist women in Peru have developed an art form by using industrial scraps from swimsuit and clothing factories.

While Lycra is not natural, it can be cut into small pieces. So factory leftovers have in a sense enabled an entire generation of arpillera art to blossom, and Lucuma Designs is proud to contribute to the evolution of this recycled art form. Each artist handpicks the materials and colors from their own pile of fabric finds, and the result is a one-of-a-kind creation from their own imagination. The artist then designs, cuts, assembles, hand stitches and finally embroiders and signs an original piece of art. Not only do they become beautiful decorative accents, but each one also keeps ‘unwanted’ materials out of landfills.

Organic Cotton Finger Puppets

Our new organic cotton puppets are just as cute as they are eco-friendly. Organic cotton is locally grown, harvested and naturally dyed in Peru, keeping chemicals and major pesticides off of our planet while maximizing the benefit to the local people. We then give this natural yarn to independent groups of women knitters who live high in the Andes of Peru near Lake Titicaca. These ladies hand knit the yarn into an amazing array of finger puppet animals and characters, which Lucuma Designs buys and then sells in the United States. The income from puppet making allows these ladies to remain on their small farms and watch their children, rather than moving to the city, seeking work in a factory and contributing to the problems of overpopulation in the urban areas of Peru.

Since mining pollution, global warming and local climate change are combining to threaten the supply of fresh water in the Peruvian Andes, we are taking the further step of developing organic puppet action packs that will plant trees and support other environmental efforts with each purchase. In addition, leftover yarn that doesn’t meet the quality standards for toys is being recycled into eco-friendly organic cotton belts.