By Rita Cook    

Arlington resident Anne Cooke is an artist, but her special brand of art is creating jewelry using paper, plastic, aluminum, cloth and plants.  Coining her company Moon on the Hill Designs, Cooke  creates earrings, necklaces, bracelets, belts and a variety of different accessories like hair decorations and pins with her recycled finds saying “I let the material I’m working with tell me what it wants to be.”



Cooke got started making jewelry originally from newspapers, glue and poster paint when she was just 12 years old on summer vacation.  From there she says her mother continued to encourage her to keep up her art but, “back then,” she says “the word “recycled” didn’t exist; but, now I see that’s what I was doing.”
Always enjoying working with her hands, Cooke says when she had her first child she learned how to knit and crochet ending up with a lot of yarn scraps too.  
Her thrifty-minded thinking immediately came into play and she says “I couldn’t bring myself to throw the scraps out, so I started thinking of ways to use them.  One thing led to another and I started to see all “scraps” in an entirely new light.  I started to experiment with different things and my friends said they liked what I came up with.  I made several pieces of recycled jewelry for them and they encouraged me to start selling my pieces.”

(Photo: Moon on the Hill Designs)

These days she has expanded to using recycled paper like printer paper, spreadsheets, paper bags, dog and cat food bags, candy wrappers, magazines, wall paper, gum wrappers, gift wrap, junk mail as well as aluminum cans, plastic bags, cloth scraps, wine corks, seeds, nuts, wood, yarn, and old jewelry.  
She makes all the paper beads that she uses in her jewelry herself, basically she says “I lay the paper that I want to use for beads, any kind of paper will do from recycled spreadsheets to dog food bags, measure along the top and bottom borders for the width of the beads and then I draw and cut isosceles triangles from the whole sheet of paper.”  Cooke says she can make a number of different shapes using this method too. “I’m always looking for new ways to use things that normally would end up in a landfill,” she explains.

Selling her work for anywhere from $5 to $30 Cooke says she is inspired in her creations by the feel and the color of the material she is working with, but the seasons inspire her too.  “I cut out or use paper punches to make shapes with paper and aluminum for earrings, bracelets and necklaces,” she explains.  “I also use cut paper to make paper beads that I also make jewelry.  Braided strips of plastic bags can be used for almost anything belts, necklaces, hair accessories, even shoes. Basically, if I can cut, fold, glue, braid, bend or fold it, I can make something out of it.”

Her most popular items tend to be her earrings.  “I think women who wear earrings can never have enough of them.  I have a teenage daughter, and many of the earrings I make appeal to her friends.  Colors are a totally different matter. Some women shop using the color spectrum used in the fashion industry, while others have a favorite color and build their wardrobe around that color or family of color.  That’s why I try to have pieces in as many colors as I can.”

As for the most unusual thing about her craft Cooks says “I’m always asking my friends and family for their “trash.”  I’m always coming up with different recycled materials that I want to experiment with and my husband likes to tell people that we never throw anything away.”  In addition to recycling just about everything, Cooke and her family also do their eco-friendly part by composting in the garden and she says they try to have only native or nativized plants in the garden and yard, especially butterfly friendly ones.  “When I have a pest problem, I use only organic cures for them.  And of course, I recycle.”

As for her work creating jewelry from her found items she concludes “I just hope that people see the thought that goes into the things I make.  Each piece is unique because the materials are unique.  I don’t have an assembly line, because I want my customers to know that their piece of jewelry is special.”

If you’re interested in Cooke’s designs you can visit her website at www.moononthehilldesigns.com.

Rita Cook is an award winning journalist who writes or has written for the Dallas Morning News, Focus Daily News, Waxahachie Daily Light,  Dreamscapes Travel Magazine, Porthole, Core Media, Fort Worth Star Telegram and many other publications in Los Angeles, Dallas and Chicago.  Cook is the Managing Editor of Insider Magazine, worked at the Chicago Sun Times for renowned columnist Irv Kupcinet and can also be heard Sunday morning in Los Angeles on The Insider Magazine Radio Show’s featured segment “I’m Standing Here.”  With five books published, her latest release is “A Brief History of Fort Worth” published by History Press.  You can contact her at rcook13@earthlink.net