Savvy, Townsville 19/04/2010

ANDY TOULSON

November 13th, 2009

Andy Toulson discovers an innovative new Townsville business which designs creative fashion cast covers

SO you've busted your arm or leg playing netball or footy or just playing silly buggers ... and now you have to walk around with an ugly cast on the relevant limb, looking (and feeling) like some clumsy and overgrown teenage dork.

With all the Christmas and office parties coming up in the next few weeks, the last thing you need is a nasty (and increasingly grubby) plaster or fibreglass cast to take the shine off your best festive outfit.

Short of sticking a garbage bag over it, there would normally not be a lot you could do ... until now.

Faced with exactly this scenario one night in September last year, Townsville lass Peta Ware come up with her very first designer cast cover ... and now her business Busted Bling is taking orders for her innovative designs from all over the world.

''I had a broken arm, and was all glammed up for an awards night, but had this ugly ugly purple cast,'' Peta said.

''I needed to do something to cover it up, so wrapped a length of black silk around it.

''Then so many people commented that night on how stylish it looked, that I realised there was something in this.

''I had never sewed before in my life, but went home and made up a rough prototype, a more fitted version in a stretchy washable material, which was seen by other women who asked if I could make one for them ... and that was the beginning.''

Kicking off her business a month later, and officially launching in January this year, the 31-year-old mother of two can barely keep up with the demand for her fashion cast covers, with website orders coming in not just locally but around Australia, and from as far afield as the United States, Canada and the UK.

The first in Australia to develop the concept, Peta holds the full design registration, with other companies now beginning to follow her lead.

Busted Bling has a wide range of creative cast and brace covers in practical materials to suit every age, size and style, from fashion designs and after-five wear, to plain block colours in the professional range, to paediatric designs and cool colours for kids.

You name it, Peta can make it for you - from zebra and leopard prints to sequinned after-five glam, through to the kids' range including camo designs, butterflies, monsters and sharks.

Ranging in price from $12 - $30, if you want to customise your cast cover to match a specific outfit, then Peta can do that too.

The business also makes fashion comfort covers for the under-arm padding on crutches, and is looking at extending into cast covers in sporting team colours.

''I always wanted to have a genuinely new idea and see it through - and it is happening,'' laughed Peta.

''Although it would be great one day, Busted Bling was never about making money - it was about seeing a need and filling it, and sometimes the most simple of ideas can often be the most in demand!

''There's the glam / fashion aspect of covering up a grungy and boring cast, and adding some 'bling' to your broken bone.

''Then there is the practical aspect, especially with kids, of being able to take the covers off and wash them.

''And then there is the comfort factor - many of my orders are from women who have broken legs, and have trouble sleeping with the uncomfortable and scratchy casts. Some have contacted me back and said after putting their new covers on, they have had their first night's sleep in weeks.

For more information, log on to www.bustedbling.com.au