The holidays are a super special time of the year. Everyone is getting together, spending time with family and friends, having fun and sharing. However the holidays can also be super materialistic. That’s where Remake Christmas comes in. Located in a busy shopping district in Denmark, Remake Christmas is an upcycling workshop where you can make free upcycled presents. Everything in the workshop is upcycled, including the house itself!

Remake Christmas the latest project from Thomas Dambo, an upcycling artist/designer from Copenhagen, Denmark. Thomas got into upcycling as a child when his mom showed him the beauty of reusing.

My whole childhood was spent in dumpster trying to find wood for my treehouse or at flee markets with my mom. I always loved the hunt. What will I find and what can I do with it?

As Thomas developed his skills he began upcycling on a larger scale. Thomas says, why make a pallet table when you can make a pallet house? Today he has two employees that help him to make art and design that involves people in upcycling.

Thomas is inspired by what he scavenges. Last year he found 300 m2 of thin red and green carpet. He figured the colour and strength of the material would be perfect for making Christmas hearts – so now its a part of his Remake Christmas workshop. Thomas believes a good upcycler sees possibilities where other people see trash.

Thomas believes Christmas should be about friends, love and fun. He thinks Christmas doesn’t need to be so materialistic and presents don’t need to be something you buy, but can be something you make yourself. That’s why he created the Remake Christmas workshop. Its located on the most busy shopping street in Denmark, and free of charge you can make a Christmas present from waste Thomas and his team have found.

Thomas can’t drive past a dumpster without looking for treasure. He’s also learnt that you don’t always need to find materials, you can decide what materials you want and figure out who has them.

In my Christmas house I have a t-shirt workshop. For the t-shirt workshop I needed t-shirts and t-shirt prints. So I contacted bands and brands asking for t-shirts they no longer needed. In this way I got several hundred t-shirts. People are always really happy to see their trash become something useful.

Remake Christmas is open everyday from 11am – 7pm until Christmas. Every morning Thomas and his team invite a school group to come by for a workshop.

Here’s a question from Thomas to our community. How often have you opened a present only to realize, that inside the wrapping was something you didn’t need. You wanted to return this useless present, but maybe didn’t have time to do it. So you ended up putting it on a shelf in your house. Some time later you saw it again and threw it out and felt bad about it. Do you know that feeling? That was the motivation behind Remake Christmas.

Source: Thomas Dambos