Episode 1 TOTALLY RUBBISH

I'm Nigel.

I'm Michelle.

'We're going to show you how to turn useless rubbish...'

What are you going to do with this lot?

'..into amazing useful stuff.'

So cool.

'All here on...'

Coming up - we meet an artist who makes amazing pictures

out of old toys.

We visit someone who wants an idea

for the toys she's stopped playing with.

And we show you how to make a disco bottle ball.

But first, a lookalike lunch from leftovers.

-Feeling hungry?

-Grub's up.

-Hey, mate. We're testing out a new range of food products.

-Yep.

And you're having some food there, so we wanted you to try our sandwich.

What d'you reckon? Is he going to fall for it?

Looks tasty.

-It does, doesn't it? It looks tasty.

-Looks tasty.

I wonder if these two will bite.

I've got a new salad, burger and chips. Do you want to try it?

Yeah.

It's fake food. It looks quite realistic, don't you think?

You don't want to eat it, then?

He's not quite sure, is he? Give it a go.

Nearly fooled you.

No.

And you? How about this lot? They all seem keen.

-What is it?

-Yeah, try it. Try the burger.

Should have stuck to the healthy option.

It's fake food. That was tasty.

I'm going to show you how to make it. Here's how to prank your mates

out of stuff you have lying around.

OK, fake food. Let's make it.

First we need our bread.

Now, what I've used is a couple of old, clean sponges.

Cut them into a nice square shape.

We need some filling for these sandwiches.

Now I'm making a ham and cheese sandwich.

Now, I've used old, clean dusters for the ham and cheese.

Pink for the ham, and I've used yellow for the cheese.

So, fold your fillings down

and put them in between your fake slices of bread.

See that there?

Next we need to neaten up our sandwich,

and for this we get a pair of scissors and trim down the fillings,

making sure we don't cut our fake bread in the process.

And if you do that all the way around your sandwich,

what you end up with is something that looks a little bit like that.

Next, cut our bread into two sandwich triangles.

Now to make the salad. So for that, what I've done

is taken an old plastic cup and cut the bottom off.

And what you're left with

is something that looks a little bit like that.

But to make it more tomato-like for our filling,

you need to paint it red.

Paint it red both sides, let it dry,

and you'll get some lovely-looking fake tomatoes.

Put those in your sandwich.

Now all we need is a bit of lettuce.

Now for that, what I've used is some old green plastic bags.

Tear or cut those up into lettuce-like leaves,

and place those in your sandwich.

See, it's looking pretty realistic now.

Put the bread back on top,

and there we have a good-looking sandwich.

All we need is something to put it in.

So how's about one of these?

Save one of your old sandwich containers.

It's perfect for fake food.

Put your sandwich inside the old sandwich container,

and you should end up with something a bit like this.

Now, if you don't want to make a sandwich,

what you could do is make something else.

A fake burger and chips which is made out of old sponges,

and then for the lettuce again I've used old green plastic bags.

Or if you're feeling really exotic,

then you could make yourself some fake sushi.

Now for this, I've used black plastic bags.

And then for the rice inside you can use this -

some springy old fruit packaging.

So there you have it. Fake food.

Want to try?

Did you know that three million tonnes of waste plastic

is produced every year in the UK?

And that's about the same weight as 7,500 jumbo jets full of people.

That is a lot of waste.

Well, I know someone who never wants to throw anything away,

and she wants to make something fantastic out of plastic.

Meet Eliz. She never throws anything away.

She keeps her old books, she keeps her old clothes

and she's even kept hold of her old toys, including the broken ones.

So, Eliz, tell me - what's your dilemma?

I've got so many toys from when I was little,

but I just don't throw them away because I feel sorry for them.

-So you're quite attached to your toys?

-Definitely.

Well, I know someone who does amazing things with toys.

So to give you some inspiration, take a look at this.

My name's Jane Perkins, and I work as an artist using found materials

including plastic toys.

I find a lot of my materials at car boot sales.

I know just what I can do with these.

These would be good.

And this would be perfect

I don't know what that is. Oh, it's a camera, I think.

Someone's getting rid of these, but they're like treasure to me.

This is a really exciting box.

Right, I've got everything I need. Time to go and start some work.

One of the most important things is to plan your design before you begin.

I'm working on a portrait at the moment,

and I'm going to continue using some of the things we found this morning.

I'm looking for pinks and for clear white,

and I'm looking for black and white.

So that's the bull I found, which is fantastic.

There's a big cat, and black beads are always useful.

I'm always looking for cheap plastic beads to use for backgrounds.

Bits of shell from a little necklace.

There's a saddle that I found.

This horse is lovely, but too big for the picture I'm making at the moment.

If you use something that's too big,

it'll dominate the picture and jump out at you,

so you have to keep things to the right scale

for the size of the picture you're making.

These are going to be fantastic.

When I start a picture, I start off with a photograph

and I gather together all the colours

that I think will be suitable for that picture.

So I've gathered together a box full of pinks and whites and blacks.

I'm using a hot glue gun to stick the pieces on.

The glue gets extremely hot,

and I have to be very careful not to burn my fingers when I'm using it.

I put the larger pieces on first

to make them equal around the picture,

and then I fill in the small gaps afterwards at the end.

I put a lot of things on upside down or at strange angles,

so that when you look at the picture

you don't immediately recognise what it is.

I tend to put things on in random places.

I'll just pick something up and think, where can I put that?

And then put it wherever it fits.

So I'm not terribly organised about it.

As a child I was always making things, toys and puppets and sewing,

and I never threw anything away. I couldn't bear to throw it away.

So this kind of work is amazing, it's brilliant for me.

I absolutely love it.

I like using plastic toys

because they come in such a variety of shapes and colours.

I use everything exactly as it's found.

I never add any colour to anything.

So I'm just going to put on the last few pieces,

and then I can reveal my picture.

So here it is. My portrait of Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge.

I hope it inspires you to do something with your old toys.

It's incredible how Jane made that portrait

with all those old, unwanted toys.

And that's inspired me to make something amazing for Eliz.

We just need some of Eliz's toys and a family photo.

Where were you there?

-On holiday. I can't even remember taking that picture.

-Very sweet.

What we're going to make is a toy picture frame

-Up for that?

-Yeah.

Now, it's simple. We're going to start by putting your picture

in the middle of a piece of old cardboard.

Now, this is quite thick cardboard,

because what we want to make sure is that the cardboard

takes the weight of all the toys that we're putting on it.

And what I'd like you do to just with a pencil

-is draw around your picture.

-OK.

Because this is going to create our frame, basically.

How old were you on this picture?

I have no idea. I look like I'm about seven, maybe.

You look really cute. So we'll put this to one side,

and then what I want you to do is just draw another square

-just a few millimetres in from this one inside it, OK?

-OK.

And that just means that when we cut it out,

your picture is just not going to fall straight through the hole,

so it just needs to be slightly smaller.

This is good teamwork, hey, Eliz?

Yeah. Teamwork is very important.

That's it, perfect. Now cut it out.

So a good tip to create a hole in the cardboard,

because it is quite thick.

Grab yourself a pencil and a bit of sticky tack.

I'm just going to push this at the back and push my pencil through.

It just saves your fingers as well. And now we can start cutting it.

It is quite tough, so you just have to bear with it.

Probably worth getting someone to help you with this bit.

Perfect. So you can just pop this bit out now,

and then you've got your picture frame.

Jane Perkins mentioned that it's all about planning your design,

so we really need to think about what kind of theme we want on it.

Now, with your plastic toys you've got loads of blues and yellows,

so I was thinking maybe a kind of beach theme.

-You know, sea, sand, sun. Sounds good?

-Yeah.

So how about we draw a nice big sun in this corner,

and this section can be the sand.

Now, obviously this is something that we've chosen to do,

but you can literally do whatever you fancy.

It might be you do, I don't know, a park theme or a rainforest theme.

Just depends what kind of toys you've got

as to what you can go for.

Whilst that's drying, let's have a look through these toys

and pick out some colours that we think are going to work.

So let's pick out some yellow bits.

There's some there.

Yeah, let's get a dinosaur on there.

These would be quite good for the rays of the sun,

if we kind of stick them out. Orange is good as well,

like the different kind of tones in the sun.

Also these old track bits might be quite useful because it's curvy.

Yeah. What about the ducks?

-The only thing with something like this is it's quite big.

-Yeah.

Too big for our picture, unless you've got a giant frame.

So maybe the duck will be good to save for something a bit bigger.

-Starfish, yeah.

-Starfish, that's cool.

I think our picture frame is just about dry.

We can start planning where everything will go on.

We could use the tracks,

-because they're quite good for the waviness, aren't they?

-Yeah.

Sun, let's do the sun.

We can put these building blocks on again,

because it just makes it more 3D, doesn't it?

We should use some cars, maybe.

Yeah, we could use the yellow car there.

-Those are yellow and orange.

-Yeah.

-OK, I think that's our design done. Are you happy?

-Yeah.

I think we've done a good job.

All that's left to do now is stick them down, which is another fun bit.

So I'll grab some glue. It needs to be pretty strong, obviously,

to keep all the toys secure.

Keep on sticking and leave it to dry.

Remember that old bit of cardboard that we put aside earlier.

Exactly the same size as your picture frame.

Put some double-sided sticky tape or glue on three sides of it

and stick this to the back of your picture frame.

Now you're leaving one side unstuck

because obviously you want to be able to slide your picture in.

So you can actually make sure your picture stands up.

I've just got another old bit of cardboard.

I've just folded a flap here like this

and put some sticky tape or glue on it, whatever you fancy.

This is going to stick onto the back just like that.

So the last thing to do, and obviously the most important,

is to put our picture into the frame.

So in the side that we've not stuck down,

you're just going to slide your picture in like so.

Position it in the middle,

and there you have your very own toy picture frame.

-What d'you reckon?

-Yeah, it's really cool.

It's cool, isn't it?

Perfect.

And if you don't fancy making a picture frame,

you know those slightly bigger toys that I showed you earlier?

Well, you could use them, stick them to an old jam jar lid,

paint it and you've got your very own cool container

that you can store loads of bits and pieces in.

Or how about creating your very own unique T-shirt,

customised with all your old plastic toys? Very cool.

To make a toy picture frame, here's what you do.

Stage one - cut out two identical pieces of old card

that are big enough for your frame. Make sure they're thick enough

to support the weight of a whole load of plastic toys.

Stage two - draw around your photo.

Take it away and draw a slightly smaller rectangle

within the shape left by the photo.

Cut out the smaller rectangle and keep the card for later.

Stage three - give your frame a lick of paint.

You can match or complement

the colours of the old toys you're going to use.

Stage four - get your old toys and stick them on,

then just leave them to dry.

Stage five - on your other piece of card,

glue or tape three of the sides and stick this to the back.

Leaving one side unstuck means you can slide your photo in.

Using the spare card from the inside of the frame,

make a stand and attach to the back.

Stage six - put your photo inside the frame.

Still to come: We meet an artist who transforms food into amazing art.

And we show you how to make a pencil pot

out of a milk carton and some old pencils.

But first, Totally Famous.

Introducing Pablo Picasso.

Totally famous for selling and losing more paintings than any other artist.

Pablo Picasso was a Spanish artist who loved to experiment.

He started a style called cubism

where he painted every single angle of an object in the same picture.

Like this one. Er...it's supposed to be a guitarist.

Using the cubist style,

Picasso churned out over 50,000 pieces of art in his lifetime,

including epic paintings like Guernica about the Spanish Civil War

and recycled sculptures like Head of a Bull.

People snapped up his work and he made lots of money,

meaning he could paint all day and party all night.

The only problem was,

because he was making so much art there was more to steal,

and over a thousand of his pieces of art mysteriously went missing.

Today people are still desperate to get their paws on a Picasso,

which means he's now become the only artist in history

to have both lost the most paintings and sold the most.

So let's hear it for the art world's biggest winner and loser -

the totally famous Pablo Picasso.

Today we're going to make a milk carton pencil pot.

Using an old plastic milk carton and a load of old pencils.

You can put anything in them.

Your keys, your money, even your jewellery.

First you get an old, clean milk carton

and you cut it in half.

Now you're going to get some double-sided tape

and stick it round the carton.

You need two pieces, you stick one round the top

and one round the bottom.

The next thing you do is you get some old pencils.

Me and Michelle don't use these ones any more.

And you just stick them around the carton.

Stick the pencils quite close together.

What will you put in it, Michelle?

Er, maybe jewellery. What are you going to put in yours, Nigel?

-Baby pandas. MICHELLE:

-Huh?

And there you have it. Your own milk carton pencil pot.

To put all your bits and bobs in.

NIGEL: Including baby pandas.

The best thing about making the milk carton pencil pot

is you can store loads of things in it.

What can you make from a big bag full of rubbish?

Just have a look at this.

Whoa! That's a lot of plastic bottles.

I'm going to show you how to make something really funky for your room.

Wicked. I can't wait to see what's going to happen.

You'll need a load of plastic bottles, an old ball,

newspaper, thick string or rope,

PVA glue, double-sided tape,

paint and strong glue.

We're going use it to make one of those.

-They are wicked.

-Disco bottle balls.

You can hang them up to impress your mates if you're having a party.

I bet the light reflects really well from it as well, doesn't it?

They look amazing when the light hits them.

-So the first thing you need is a ball.

-OK.

An old ball, find it anywhere.

And we need to stick old newspaper to it with PVA glue.

-Easy. I love that.

-Simple. Do you reckon you can do that?

-Yeah, I can do that.

-Go on, then.

Cut the paper into small pieces before gluing.

The paper will help the bottles stick to the ball.

OK, so once we've got our ball that's been covered in newspaper,

what we need to do is we need to paint it a nice colour.

I've chosen some silver paint.

Oooh, silver, nice.

We're going down that bling route.

-Yeah, it's kind of space-agey, isn't it?

-It is.

-Intergalactic.

If you're not into intergalactic bling silver like Michelle and I,

you can use a different colour.

-Look at that.

-Shiny, that.

-Shiny.

Now, the next thing we do is attach our key bottle to it.

-I see.

-Now this is our key bottle

because we've tied a bit of string around it.

-So this one needs to be stuck on with some strong glue.

-Yeah.

This is the bottle you're going to use to hang your disco ball up.

You need to use strong glue

as this bottle will take all the weight of the ball.

-Normally it takes about two to three days.

-OK.

-Joke. You're going to be all right.

-You what?

See you in a bit, yeah?

See you in a little bit.

Only kidding. It should take about 20 minutes to dry.

Now for your other bottles, you can also use strong glue,

-but for us, we've got some double-sided tape.

-Ah, clever.

And we're going to use that.

You stick your other bottles as close as you can together

using the double-sided tape.

-Oh.

-See, it's already starting to take shape.

-Yeah.

It's such a good use for old bottles, isn't it?

People are throwing these away when they could be creating masterpieces.

I'm placing the bottles very close together,

but you can vary the spacing or use different colours

to make your ball unique.

Once you're halfway through, it should look like this.

-Ooh, yes.

-See that? It's starting to take shape already.

-Yep.

-Once you get them all on

then you have your finished bottle ball like those over there.

Since plastic bottles come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and colours,

there are many ways to make your disco ball match your style.

If you can't find, you know, a medium-sized ball,

you could use a smaller ball, you could use a big ball.

The neon on one down at the bottom, that's a tennis ball.

And then the one on the far left there with the gold core,

that's a football inside that one.

-You have impressed me.

-There you go. Your going to want one.

I'm trying that out, I'm hanging one in my room. That's it. Done.

Bottle balls.

Perfect to get the party started, let's get it.

CHOMPING

BURPS

-Nice moves, Vin.

-Thanks, Min. Do you know that in the UK

we throw away enough plastic bottles each year to circle the Earth twice.

All the more reason to make a disco bottle ball,

then we can dance AND reuse our old bottles.

No one wants to watch you dancing, Min.

Hey! I can dance with anyone. I danced with an old sink once.

-Really?

-Yeah - we did a tap dance!

So, Nige, what are we doing here?

Are we looking for some nice food for you to cook me for dinner?

No, it's not all about feeding you.

We're here to see an artist who is amazing with food.

Come with me.

-Hi there, Carl.

-Hi, Nigel, how you doing?

Yeah, good to see you. This is Michelle.

-Hi, nice to meet you.

-So, what are you doing here?

Something a little bit strange.

I'm looking for food in order to make a picture.

Food to make a picture?

Where would you start on something like that?

Well, you've got to look at food in a completely different way.

For example, this is curly kale.

You might see it looks like some cabbage-y, vegetable-y thing,

but to me, I see trees and bushes I could make using these leaves.

-Here, for example, it's a red onion.

-Yep.

But also, if you put a nut underneath it,

it becomes like a hot air balloon flying through the sky.

-Looking at food in a completely different way.

-Absolutely.

So what other foods do you use?

We've got vegetables here. Do you use anything else?

I've made seas out of smoked salmon.

Little villages out of garlic bulbs.

The possibilities are endless, and food is such an amazing thing.

It's such great organic shapes and textures and colours

that I can do almost any scene in the world.

Are you working on anything at the moment?

I've got this idea to do a seascape with rolling waves coming in

and crashing on rocks.

So I was thinking about making potatoes for the rocks

and perhaps some really interesting lettuce if I can find it

will be the splash of the wave.

-I think I saw some lettuce over there.

-Let's go have a look.

It's got pretty long leaves, this one, which are quite good.

I think they'd be nice waves.

We want to lay them in long straight lines.

So the stems going horizontally.

Yeah, yeah, like waves drifting in to shore.

To me, food's like an artist uses paint on a palette.

I'm working in three dimensions rather than working on an easel.

Painting with food.

We're arranging the food for the camera

and taking photos as we go along.

And we have to work fast, as the food will start to go off.

I remember being at school and using pasta for artwork.

-Yeah.

-But nothing on this scale.

-Stick it down to stuff.

The work is based on people thinking it's a real scene,

and then double-taking and realising it's actually made out of food.

And I call this the pleasant deception.

People actually like to be fooled by it.

While Carl puts his lettuce seascape together,

one of his fellow artists is making a pirate ship to sail on it.

How's it coming along, Paul?

Hopefully good. You tell me. What do you think?

It's so impressive. It's really realistic, isn't it?

My favourite bit is these sails here.

-It looks like it's moving in the wind.

-Yeah, that's right.

We've lost it amongst the waves. It looks like it's sinking,

so we need to prop it up a bit.

-Shark's fin, a bit of mangetout.

-Great idea. I love it.

There you go, guys, it's finished.

It looks absolutely amazing.

Don't worry, none of this food went to waste.

The pigs at the local farm had a lovely lunch.

And that's us done for today, too.

We'll see you next time on Totally Rubbish.

Why don't you have a go at making some fake food?

Or using your old toys for a picture frame?

Making a milk carton pencil pot.

Or creating a disco bottle ball.

And start collecting driftwood or twigs.

Scratched sunglasses.

And old newspaper, plastic bags and leftover balloons

for next time on Totally Rubbish.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd