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Latest News and Info
It’s Recycle Week 2022!
23rd October 2022
It’s Recycle Week 2022!
Recycle Now™ is the national recycling campaign for England and Northern Ireland, which aims to motivate more people, to recycle more of the right things, more often.
Recycle Week is Recycle Now‘s flagship annual event, celebrating recycling across the nation. It’s the one week of the year where retailers, brands, waste management companies, trade associations, governments and the media come together to achieve one goal: to galvanise the public into recycling more of the right things.
This year’s theme is ‘Let’s Get Real’, and will challenge perceptions and myths around recycling, and target contamination to improve recycling behaviours.
Why it’s important to us?
Recycle week symbolises the importance of recycling through the delivery of crucial campaign moments and ongoing citizen interaction.
The organisation works to educate and inspire citizens to modify their behaviour in recycling, just like we do! It seems the perfect time to remind you all of the fantastic accomplishments Seagulls have reached through recycling:
Saved and reused over 4 million litres of paint, equaling 11 million kg or 11,000 tons of CO2e. This is the equivalent of planting 68 million trees.
Recovered 75,000 kg of scrap metal tins and 123,944 kg of liquid oil that has been recycled.
Provided a social value of £1.9 million to the city of Leeds in 2018
Created a unique and people-centred organisation; learning as we go along and responding to local needs, all through the art of recycling.
We can’t thank our loyal customers enough for working with our organisation to make the environment a better place. Now let’s double these stats!
Need to paint your decking?
18th August 2022
Ok, so we covered how to paint your garden gate. Now let’s talk about getting your decking ready for a bank holiday bbq!
For those who have some lovely decking in your garden, you already know what a great addition it is. Perfect for dining, socialising, sunbathing or BBQs.
However, the trusty British weather probably means you don’t get to use your outdoor space as much as you’d wish. It also means that it will most likely need a bit of TLC after a long winter.
Leave your decking to dry for 24 hours minimum.
1. Cleaning your decking
So we are going to start by giving your decking a good clean. It’s recommended that you keep it tidy all year round, to save a big clear-up once a year. Just a weekly brush should do!
Get yourself a stiff outdoor brush and brush away any debris.
Now it’s clean, it’s time to apply Decking Cleaner. Unfortunately, Decking Cleaner is hard to come by at Seagulls and when we get it, it’s gone within the hour!
You should apply the cleaner directly onto the wood and use your scrubbing brush. Then jet wash this off, leaving it to dry for at least 24 hours. (Make sure you consider the weather; you don’t want to do this and then it rains!)
2. Sanding your decking
You now have a clean deck, but you need to make sure there is no leftover paint! (If you are painting over/touching up skip over this step)
Firstly, take a wire brush and use light sweeping strokes to remove any old paint.
Then you can go ahead with your scraper for that tougher paint. Scraping rarely removes all the paint from the existing deck, and it’s not meant to. After scraping away loose paint, it’s likely the wood will still have plenty of stuck-on paint. However, if it’s not peeling the new paint will still stick.
You can now begin to sand the decking. This smooths out the edges allowing for a fresh coat to be applied. If you have a power sander handy- brilliant! If not, try using a sanding sponge. Before sanding, use a hammer and nailset to countersink any nails that might be sticking up.
3. Treating & painting the wood
It is up to you what tools you use for this project, whether it be a brush, a paint pad or a roller. Make sure you apply your Frog Tape before cracking that tin of paint open though.
What paint should you use?
Here is where we come in handy.
We have everything you will need to bring your decking back to life, if you know exactly what you want, it will be best for you to ask a member of staff to show you where everything is- we have paint in abundance. Don’t be afraid to ask for help too, that’s what we are here for!
– Decking Preserver
We have several different types of Wood preservers. Cuprinol & Ronseal are the most popular at Seagulls, and the best in our opinion! It comes in various different colours, including Dark Browns, Green & Clear.
– Decking Paint
Our Decking Paint is again mainly Cuprinol & Ronseal. We occasionally get the likes of Wickes, Barrentine & Ever Build, though they are rare. Again, they come in colours such as Green, Clear, Oak, Pine, Timber, Cedar, and Mahogany.
You will need these materials too:
Painter’s tape
We sell Frog Tape in-store, offering 2 different types. The Green s the most common and better of the 2, it is multi-surface & will cost you £8.50. The Yellow is for delicate surfaces and we charge £9 for a roll of that!
Dust Sheets
We sell 12-foot by 12-foot dust sheets for just £2.50 each!
Scraper
We sell scrapers instore for £2.50
Scrubbing Brush
Unfortunately, we don’t have scrubbing brushes in stock at the minute.
Click here for a list of materials we sell in-store.
Seagulls Summer Market: What to expect
10th July 2022
It’s officially time! We have booked the weather, and are dusting off the bunting and sweeping the yard ready to welcome our stallholders and visitors for what looks to be our best market yet.
The response to our call for stallholders has been amazing. We have a lot of regular stallholders and also many new faces (which we are thrilled about!).
So, let’s talk to stallholders. Have a scroll and find out who and what to expect at the market, I’d say we have a bit of everything!
Both days
Goods In General
Goods in General is a Seagulls Market regular! They concentrate on vintage, industrial and salvaged. All items are practical, quality items saving them from landfills and ensuring they won’t be left to gather dust.
Biddy and Bear are a unisex children’s clothing company, inspired by the lack of good clothing for children on the high street. They source unique clothing ethically, of course!
Leeds-based jewellery you can’t say no to! Valmont Studio’spieces are mainly in enamel, silver and copper; heavily influenced by My work sculpture and the abstract form. The nature of the enamelling process makes each piece unique.
Elena Rubiu is a Sardinian ceramist based in Leeds. Look at these pieces! Elena also puts on a variety of ceramic workshops so you can learn her skill.
Pennyis an artist in Leeds. She has been studying and producing Art and Crafts for over 20 years, including oil painting, photography (film & digital), wood carving, fine art and of course pottery.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CbFWGVUMVd9/
Saturday
March Makes
March Makes is a small family-run business, that makes a variety of letterbox gifts and care packages. You may also find some unique jewellery pieces on their Etsy too!
Halfpenny Ink is run by Alice Halfpenny, an Artist and Graphic Designer.
Inspired by nature and all that surrounds us, Alice creates art that celebrates its beauty and diversity. All work is created using a pointillism technique with fine liner pens. Brilliant!
Alice Albentosa creates ethical silver jewellery for conscious women. Expect to find sterling silver adjustable rings and so much more.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CcnvaMlMC8B/
Scarborough Rd Studio
Natalie Knight is an Illustrator, Lino printer and Crafter based in West Yorkshire. Look at these earrings! What a great addition to our Summer Market.
Soft and Squiffy is run by Leah, who upcycles her children’s old clothing, or old clothes of her own, and gives them a new lease of life. The filling of her cushions, like the one shown below, is used from recycled plastic bottles.
Ink and Bear are run by Sophie Greenwood, who makes colourful, simple screen prints inspired by nature and travel. She also delivers creative workshops in and around Leeds.
Nat is Chief Clay Lady at Upsydaisy Craft! In Nat’s words ‘Getting a fresh bag of clay and turning it into some colourful jewellery through the magic of the kiln is always amazing, opening the kiln after a day of it heating my house is a lot of nervous excitement!’
Rebecca is the creator behind the genius Black Violet. Her pieces specialise in Concrete, Moss, Crystal Jewellery & Homeware, what an impressive variety!
Sarah is an avid traveller, photographer and blogger. Inspired by our diverse, natural and cultural world she offers colourful prints, canvasses and jewellery. Wow!
Roisin Smith
Roisin Smith makes her own jewellery, and they are brilliant. Perfect for your summer holidays!
Food
The Slice Is Right
Why not treat yourself to a slice of pizza for lunch! The Slice Is Right is a Leeds-based mobile pizza caterer. They specialise in traditional Neopolitan pizzas, with plenty of options (including vegan!)
Finished your pizza, it’s time for something sweet! Melts are rocky roads, redesigned. Think of your favourite chocolate bar stacked with its best friends (and they are all vegetarian). We can’t wait to try!
Jita’s Green Sauce sells authentic Indian chutney, and it sounds delicious, made with fresh mint, coriander, green chillies, ginger, garlic and a little lemon juice for tanginess.
Gary will be serving hot drinks and ice cream all weekend. What more could you ask for!
We look forward to seeing you all there! the weather is looking good, and we cant wait to see some familiar faces.
Seagulls x
Our biggest paint order…EVER!!
7th July 2022
Some exciting news from us over at Seagulls… We received our biggest paint order to date!
What was the order?
It was from a lovely lady called Nicole-Rose from Surrey. Her order was for 25 x 10L bespoke paint colours. She also got some brand new white matt, silk, gloss, undercoat and floor paint.
Nicole’s budget was set at £800 although the order came to £842.50! But for an order of this size, we obviously let her off the £42.50. This was still the biggest paint order we have ever received and the team were eager to get working on it!
We knew that Nicole’s order was a bargain, so we broke it down to compare with leading brands. We just knew this would make a brilliant price comparison.
Price Comparison
Through online research, we found that 10 litres of a bespoke colour from Dulux would cost approximately £150.
So, if our calculations are correct this means 25 x 10L is worth approximately £3750. This is already a saving of £2950! Add some new stock on top of that and we’re talking approximately £4000+ for the entire order!!!
It took our team less than one week to mix the ENTIRE order and we loved the challenge.
We deliver within the Leeds area for a £10 fee, for larger orders, we could potentially deliver for free. Don’t let geography put you off a large order, we might still make financial sense, even to pick up as Nicole did! It’s always worth getting in touch.
Over to Nicole-Rose for some lovely feedback:
“Thank you all so much first of all for such an incredible service. Andy particularly was brilliant at keeping me updated on the progress of the order. I heard about you from an art shop in Leeds City Centre (Fred Aldous) when I was looking for a local paint supplier. I was presented with an opportunity to redesign a theatre in Central London and when I visited the space I knew I’d need a lot of paint.
Nicole with her £800 order
“I looked you up on Google and found your website really easy to follow, so I placed an order. I’m a huge believer in supporting local businesses and I love your philosophy of re-using paint that would have otherwise been sent to landfills because I hate the idea of waste.
“Thank you for the brilliant service and a warm welcome and a really quick turnaround in getting the paint ready in line with my deadline. You have a customer for life as far as I’m concerned.“
Painting Your Metal Gate
2nd July 2022
Hey folks, we have had a few questions about painting specific materials, so we thought why not make a series of blogs about just that! First up we are taking a look at painting a metal gate.
Here are some valuable tips before we begin:
Look at the weather, you will need the weather to be on your side for this project as it involves a lot of air drying.
Wear face, eye and hand protection. You’ll thank us later.
Step 1 – Prepare
Make sure you have the correct surroundings. It would be best to take the gate off its post and rest it on 2 saw-horses. Be sure to put a dust sheet down to protect your surroundings. Also, safety first- get yourself an eye mask and face mask, no one wants rust in the eyes or fumes in their lungs!
Step 2 – Remove Rust
Use a wire brush to remove any rust the metal gate may have accumulated. You want the smoothest base for better application of the new paint, and you can also then tell which bits have been affected most by rust. Then, just let it dry out! (Make sure you’re wearing your gloves for this)
Step 3- Smooth it out
Now that it is all dry, wipe the gate down with a cloth to eliminate any debris. Now it’s time for the wire brush again. We don’t actually stock these as of yet, but keep your eyes peeled! The wire brush is needed to smooth the surface once again. You can also add some rust neutraliser if there are any tough spots!
Step 4- Primer
Again, make sure your dust sheet is down for this step. Apply an outdoor metallic primer using a paintbrush, and wait until it is fully dry before you do a second coat. You can also apply it to any previously rusty areas, just the help seal any gaps left by rust. Again, allow the gate to dry according to the primer manufacturer’s guidelines, before moving on to paint the gate.
Step 5-Paint
After your gate is dry (this may be a long process I know!). Simply start by painting the outer edges first, then the decorative embellishments over it, and then to the backside of the gate.
Be sure to cover any hard-to-reach places, and use whatever works for you, as long as the paint is perfectly laid on the surface.
If you are wondering what paint is best, not to worry- we’ve got you sorted. You would use a high alkyd paint, such as Hammerite for metal materials. We have a variety of Hammerite in-store, but colours and stock will vary with what we have picked up recently!
We also sell Red Oxyd Primer and Metal Primer, two different variants of primer. Again, it is not guaranteed what specific colours we have but just pop along and our excellent staff will help you with your project.
Want to learn how to decorate?
25th May 2022
We sell paint (of course) but do you know how to use it when you get home
We host 3 different decorating courses here at Seagulls, all held by Ruksar.
Ruksar is a professionally trained decorator, with years of experience under his belt. He is an engaging facilitator and the courses are very much hands-on and full of practical tips.
If you have met him, you’ll know he loves to talk and share his knowledge, so expect to come away brimming with painty solutions to your decorating woes!
You will be learning in our ‘Painting Pods’. These pods have been built to emulate a real room setting, to give you the best experience possible for learning decorating techniques
Here is what you can choose from:
A Beginners Guide to Painting & Decorating
This crash course in decorating will equip you with all the basic techniques and skills needed to tackle a room from preparation to finish.
Learn the basics
Here is what to expect:
1. Preparation; learning how to get rid of pesky stains, and the best types of fillers for different jobs.
2. Ceilings
3. Cutting in- perhaps the most important aspect of decorating to get that all-important professional finish. We will spend a reasonable amount of concentrating on this technique as it’s so easy once you know how and have had some practice and you’ll never need to use masking tape again!
Learn the art of brush control. A cutting in Masterclass, it’s simple when you know-how!
Brush control, it’s easy!
Fed up with wonky lines? The wrong colour paint on the ceiling and fiddling about with masking tape? Then this is the masterclass for you.
We think ‘Cutting in’ is the most important decorating technique to get right when painting a room. Perfect this technique and you can have a decorated room to be proud of.
In this short and sweet workshop, you will learn:
1. Different types of brushes & Brush control
3. How to perfect your line between wall and ceiling, wall and skirting board and fiddly light fittings and sockets.
4. Practice in our rooms before unleashing the brush on your own walls.
It’s not rocket science but there is skill involved, once you know how you will never look back, it’s a skill for life!
This advanced course will equip you with all the tips, tricks and techniques needed to give you the perfect finish when painting walls and ceilings.
Get your ceilings and walls looking professionally done
This Masterclass focuses on:
1. Preparation- learning how to get rid of pesky stains, the best types of fillers for different jobs, and how to tackle a room.
2. Brush and roller techniques- the difference between the finishes depends on the tools you use with a focus on brush and roller control and how much pressure to apply.
It’s easy once you know how and have had some practice (on somebody else’s walls).
You all know that we reuse recycled paint, and put it to good use. But do you know what we do during a paint collection?
We made this TikTok a few months ago where we brought you guys along with us on our paint collection, but think it’s time we refreshed everyone’s minds!
Firstly, we have a partnership with Leeds City Council allowing us to have a big pink Seagulls container at each household waste site in Leeds.
You are able to donate your old paint by popping it into the container. Our team will then pick it up on their paint collection.
As you can see in the TikTok, when we arrive at the waste sites we differentiate whether the tins are good or bad. We can usually tell by giving them a good shake. If you can hear a watery sound, it’s usually off.
Good paint
Good paint goes on one side of the van, and bad on the other. We have to carefully pack them in to avoid any paint spillages on the journey back to Seagulls.
The good tins go into the paint mixing room, which we call SD3. Here, we find that most of the tins are half full, so here is where we can have fun.
Our paint mixers then find other tins that are half-full, mix together new colours and then add a paint splodge onto the lid. The tins then get taken over to the paint shop ready to be bought by our lovely customers!
However, if the paint is off we do things a bit differently.
Bad Paint
The ‘bad’ paint gets taken to our Paint Disposal room.
Whoever is is disposals will open each tin of paint, goggles and masks on (it can get smelly) and dispose of the off paint into a large container. We have one container for water-based paint, and one for oil-based.
An external recycling company collects these containers, meaning they can get disposed of correctly.
The plastic paint tins then get taken away by Forge Recycling, and we take metal tins to the scrap yard ourselves.
We took a trip last week, taking about 2 weeks’ worth of tins weighing just under a ton. We got £106 for this!
It is nearly that time again! The prep for our Spring Market is well underway, and we are just as excited as you are. After the success of our winter market, we can’t wait for you all to be back at Seagulls.. hopefully with fewer layers this time.
Ben has been working hard on booking some fantastic vendors and stallholders to make this one too remember!
Without Ben from Seagulls Mosaic, the market would not have been nearly possible. Ben coordinates our markets and makes them what they are. A true legend!
As well as a wide range of artists, makers and creators we will have food stalls, beer from our friends at Kirkstall Brewery and Ginny the Gin Wagon.
Some stallholders you can expect to see;
Both days-
Huandmee
Hu & mee offers a variety of Panda-themed items (cards, towels, mugs, you name it!), Simple ‘Punny’ Cards & Doodles.
Boki Ethical sell sustainable stationery, home decor & clothing. They are a creative space for standing up for causes close to their hearts like mental health awareness, environment, women’s rights & equality.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca_zqFYA1vi/
Goods in General
Goods in General concentrate on vintage, industrial and salvaged. All items are practical, quality items saving them from landfills and ensuring they won’t be left to gather dust.
Laura makes small batches of Jewellery, accessories & homeware as unique as the person who owns them! After studying Printed Textiles, Laura began experimenting and working with polymer clay as a side project to let her creativity run free.
L&O Sweets as Gifts offer personalised Vegan & Vegetarian sweets for all occasions. They have a variety of letterbox gifts so they can come straight to your door!
A Vegan Mothers Day Letterbox Gift.
Carter & Francis
Carter & Francis make handmade items, with love from discarded, vintage and remnant materials in Yorkshire. We especially love this blue bag!
March Makes is a small family run business, that makes a variety of letterbox gifts and care packages. You may also find some unique jewellery pieces on their Etsy too!
Biddy and Bear are a unisex children’s clothing company, inspired by the lack of good clothing for children on the high street. They source unique clothing ethically, of course!
Soft and Squiffy is run by Leah, who upcycles her children’s old clothing, or old clothes of her own, and gives them a new lease of life. The filling of her cushions, like the one shown below, is used from recycled plastic bottles.
Mark is the Chief Scrapleteer at Scraplets. He is a woodworker and maker based in Leeds. After finding a block of wood with nails looking like arms and legs, he decided to begin making different characters during lockdown. All the Scraplets are made from reclaimed wood.
Wednesday Moon sells Handmade eco homeware, LGBTQ+ prints & cards. They have a range of Jesmonite candle holders, body vase pots and soap dishes, all in bright and eclectic colours.
Amy Lee offers Graphic Design, Illustration and Print Work. Her work is playful and bold, and will fit perfectly at the market!
https://www.instagram.com/p/CZcCP-LMAg0/
Food
We haven’t forgotten about the food! All the shopping and browsing means one thing, you will get peckish.. and we have just the solution. (All food vendors will be doing both days of the market.)
Humbl Coffee
Why not start your day with our favourite, Humbl Coffee. They are back, hopefully, this time they aren’t in the firing line of wind, rain and snow!
Why not treat yourself to a slice of pizza for lunch! The Slice Is Right is a Leeds-based mobile pizza caterer. They specialise in traditional Neopolitan pizzas, with plenty of options (including vegan!)
Mama’s house is a fusion of mouth-watering West African delicacies and Caribbean succulents with a variety of rich and righteous rum drinks. Mouth-watering alright!
All things scone! The little Yorkshire scone co. offer gift boxes, hampers and unique flavoured scones are delivered anywhere in the UK. My favourite is the Cream Cheese & Salmon, yum!
