Shop at a 'creative reuse' store for arts and crafts supplies

I recently discovered creative reuse centers, which are designed to help people get the most out of leftover hobby supplies. These places aren't your typical thrift shops—they deal only in creative supplies, and as a person with a handful of arty hobbies, I was charmed by the concept.

Creative reuse stores take surplus stock from art stores and companies, as well as personal donations. They’re often home to an endless range of usable scraps. You can find fabrics, paint, foam offcuts, paper trim—all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff—at a significant discount. You can get anything from fancy professional-grade papers to poster paints for kids.

I’ve used the UK store Renee Materials to get quality paper for print-making | Source: Renee Materials

By reusing materials, these stores and their customers help reduce the demand for new products. Passing materials on to new users cuts down on manufacturing emissions and waste, even more so than recycling unwanted but usable materials would. ReCreative Denver, for example, has diverted 90,000 pounds of waste, which would otherwise end up in either landfill or incinerators, contributing to further emissions.

Best of all, you get materials at a fraction of the usual retail price. As anyone with a crafty pastime knows, they’re not cheap. Creative reuse centres make these activities more accessible, allowing you to expand your practice or try something new without breaking the bank. They often run events and workshops, too.

A lot of creative reuse centres are local brick-and-mortar places, so it’s best to do a search for what’s in your area. The Sadie Seasongoods blog compiles a list of stores by state. But there are also more and more online options popping up:

• Pittsburgh Centre for Creative Reuse has an online store that ships all over the US.
• Make & Mend is a Massachusetts-based store that also sells online.
• Remnants by Peo Vee allows users to buy and sell their unwanted supplies online.
• Makeropolis also ships country-wide in the US.

Check these stores out and let the materials they’ve rescued get a second life—and a chance to inspire you.