“Woman of wood”: the Mazatlan artisan of recycling

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Liliana Herrera gives a “second chance” to old furniture or pieces that are considered “garbage”

Mazatlán, Sinaloa. – Liliana Herrera decided to break the mold of traditional crafts and use recycled materials to create her designs. She is an innovative woman. For three years he has dedicated himself to giving a new life to the pieces of wood that are considered “garbage”, such is the case of leftovers from some object or old furniture.

It was in 2016 when the woman from Mexico City began to study carpentry at Cecati, here in Mazatlán, and as of September 19, 2019, she began to market her crafts.

Hydrobiology by profession, who has worked for several years in environmental projects, married a Mazatlan, and has lived here for 11 years, she began to study hard to give a degree of difficulty to her crafts

This is how he entered the carpentry trade, one of the oldest in the world, demonstrating that there is no area forbidden for women and that they can do things as well as any teacher who claims to be.

“All my life I have liked crafts and when I arrived here in Mazatlán I didn’t have a job and I looked for a long time, I could not find and I began to study carpentry at Cecati, for three years, because one is used to doing many things, but my line was always handicrafts, crafts applied to wood, from there creations come out that are infinite “.

She has always had the skill and a taste for crafts because it is in her blood, her father was a glass engraving craftsman and from there she began to help him.

Due to his professional training, she is clear about the importance of preserving the environment, so she has always looked for a way to recycle, even those objects that she saw thrown in the street.

She shares that when she took the workshop, she noticed that a lot of wood was wasted, so she chose to recycle what was already considered “garbage” and turn it into useful pieces for her home, such as benches, flower pots, bookcases, pencil holders and kitchen tables. some of them with colorful eco-friendly paints.

“Most of the students were retired, they began to gather their remains that they had leftover from the furniture they made and from there I started to use all of them, I have always liked to reuse and then I walk as a ‘scavenger’ in the streets looking for what people throw away, like frames and things that still work, I like that transformation a lot because someone sees trash, but I see something else, potential, “she says.

“In these years I have developed many techniques in crafts and decorative things, some learned in a self-taught way, such as painting, to give those vintage-style finishes that are very fashionable; I try to give modernity and also do many furniture renovations, which have been a boom, the doors have become tables and the headboards in armchairs ”.

For Liliana everything has “another use”, so she is a specialist in renovating wooden objects that seem useless, she has even created works made with things that were not thrown away, but became part of an “alternative” business.

In the beginning, this was to solve the things of your home and decorate the spaces to your liking. Everything it does tries to make it have a function because something that works is not thrown away.

That is how he started with everything small and with the skills that she took in carpentry, she has been able to make renovations with headboards, for example, by turning them into benches; And although he has made some, the furniture is not her line, because it takes a long time, she does not have space or the necessary tools.

As I have lived alone for a long time, I have always been to solve, among everything I already knew how to do, because I know how to do many things, I am a do-it-yourself lover

Liliana Herrera

The 44-year-old entrepreneur currently has a small workshop in her home, where she does all the work. Custom orders began to be more and more common, so he decided to start her brand Tabli Chic, an online store that is beginning to be successful.

Its sales potential is social networks, and it has already sent various articles to Culiacán, Hermosillo, Puebla, Mexico City, and Cancun. Her goal is to have a place to exhibit, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic it is currently complicated.

However, she is confident that he will soon be able to do so, in addition to hiring housewives, pregnant women and the elderly, who are part of “that vulnerable sector that nobody turns to see.”

“There are many people with skills, right now I am doing collaborations with women who do sewing, I do not resell their work, I pay for their work, I give their data and we sell something together, where we all win, I also have a friend who knows embroider and I’m going to start making things with wood so that he can do his embroidery “.

Contact Liliana at Tabli chic facebook page click here

Source: elsoldemazatlan.com.mx

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