Meet the team

It was lunchtime and we’d all spent the morning working together on another project. Everybody was feeling happy and energised. Then suddenly the conversation turned to one of us who’d just upholstered an old chair, working it out as she went along. Somebody else said they’d made a seating area for the garden using an old pine bedstead. Wasn’t it amazing, we agreed, what you could make and mend – with just a little help?

So, let’s introduce you to the original Make it and Mend it team (a team that now includes you)…

Hillary Bruffell

Glamorous Hilary is the Make it and Mend it role model: she can make it, mend it, sew, decorate and renovate it. There’s nothing Hilary can’t whip up into a chic home furnishing! Annoyingly she’s just as successful in her career (we’re not jealous, honest!). And not content with having run her own media production and consultancy businesses she then had to go off and get herself a Doctorate in Psychology. » Read about Hilary Bruffell in Junk for Joy

Likes: Turning junk into joy

Hates: Throwing anything away

Anne Caborn

Anne is a wordsmith, who not only embraces her inner geek, but positively nourishes it.  A journalist by trade, Anne has a real eye for detail.If she isn’t chasing around after her teenage daughter or bending double at a yoga day, Anne is the person you want around when your computer crashes or your flat pack needs assembling.  She’ll never be left with that extra screw that you just don’t know what to do with.

Likes: studying the small print in terms and conditions

Dislikes: skiing and walking across bridges

Clare Flynn

Clare Flynn is Make it and Mend it’s powerhouse. When she’s not beating her courgette plants into submission or learning how to upholster she’s an extremely skilled marketer and strategist.For Clare the glass is neither half empty nor half full, instead it’s an opportunity to see what happens if you turn the glass upside down, trap the milk inside, whack a candle on top and turn it into a combined lighting system and yoghurt maker.

Likes: Chelsea FC and Italian cheese

Dislikes: hot air and plastic carrier bags

Clare O’Brien

Her talent with leftovers is only surpassed by her cordon bleu brilliance. Besides cooking, her passions including kick boxing, supporting Chelsea FC and organizing events – she’s a real powerhouse if you have a school fundraiser to pull together. She’s also a shrewd businesswoman with a wealth of practical experience, a burgeoning contact book and loads of fresh ideas (and the energy to execute them).

Likes: walking by the river, saving stuff to make other stuff out of and gathering with friends

Dislikes: 4X4 vehicles and the “me take” generation