A VILLAGE church has found an innovative way of paying its respects during the 100 year remembrance celebrations, by up-cycling old plastic bottles.

The Coffee Morning Group, who meet at the 300-year-old Parish Church of Saint Deinol and Saint Marcella in Marchwiel have spent the last six months making poppies out of unwanted plastic bottles, with the decorated gardens and exterior railings of the church already attracting plenty of attention.

Heather Rowland, one of the church wardens, who came up with the idea of making the poppies, said the group, who meet every other week, is made up of both church going members and those from the community who just wanted to help out.

She said: "We wanted to do something special and seeing as it's the centenary, it wasn't enough just to do something on Remembrance Sunday, so this was a way of having something ongoing, throughout the whole year.

"We also thought it would be a good way to get the community and villager's to join to in and get them involved in the church and to help us out."

The environmental concious idea has brought new members to the coffee morning group, who have been able to learn a new skill as the bottles are cut and moulded into shapes and painted using a vivid red water based acrylic paint, which makes the finished product stand out.

Heather added: "I got a design for the poppies and then did demonstrations for everyone to follow and it went from there really. We've even had people asking us if they can buy them, so we've sold some now and all the proceeds are going to the Poppy Appeal.

"I suppose it's more of a community thing than it is a faith thing because we want the church used by as many people as possible, because after all, we're just the caretakers of a building that is very important from a heritage point of view."

The Coffee Morning group meet at the church every other Tuesday between 10am and 12pm and all are welcome and the poppies are on display in the church grounds from now until November.