How to use the
Our Neighbors, Scrapstores and Creative Reuse Shops list.
Maybe
you've come upon this list because you are already involved in a
Scrapstore or Creative Reuse and you think "There's too much to do in
our own art center, I don't have the time or money to go flying around
the world visiting all these other fabulous places." Yes we understand,
we don't either. This list is here so you can travel by internet see
what others are doing and copy it. Yes, I did it, I said copy, we are
all in this upcycling movement together, (Pablo Picasso said it first,
"bad artists copy, great artists steal") but It is always important, and
of course nice, to give credit where credit is due. We got our
inspiration for "15 second volunteering" from
Austin Creative Reuse
and boy does it work.
In this article I use Scrapstore and Creative
Reuse Store interchangeably though I tend to favor Scrapstore as it is
shorter.
Social Networking
I
recommend that you use the modern social networking tools to their
fullest and so I try to include all of those as an important aspect of
this list. Almost every one on this list has a website and most have at
least a Facebook page and many have Twitter and Pinterest pages too.
Find out if your current and your potential clients are on other
networks too and get on the ones they are already involved in.
It is also very important that we all "like" each others Facebook pages
and Pinterest images etc because it allows social networks to categorize
us and then in turn recommend in their 'you might also like' similar
pages. This will help us grow as a scrapstore movement and we are all in this because we
think a change needs to be made in the world and fast.
Watch and get ideas of what other art centers are doing like when they start a seed swap, or Christmas shop, or debut a new recycled craft.
Website Design
Look
at the pages and headings of other groups websites and see if there are
important gaps of information that you are not providing to your
clients. Do you have links to your social networking pages in an easy to
find spot on every page of your website. Is it easy to find the address
to your location. Are your hours posted clearly. What is your mission
statement. What type of donations do you take. Etc.
Funding
It
is so sad to see scrapstores close due to a lack of funding. We
understand that grants may be hard to get so we must be prepared to
think creatively. Some have an additional
Botique or Art Gallery selling recycled arts and crafts. Some require
membership
with these fees providing most or all the income and a per visit or per
shopping bag or per shopping cart payment scheme. Still others allow you to chose how much you think it is worth with
pay-as-you-will pricing. This list can help you see the breadth of funding possibilities that are available to your Creative Reuse.
For
example here at Art of Recycle have a highly diversified financial
platform. Because our Scrapstore only provides about half of our
financial needs we need to think creatively. We have chosen to not have
membership because we wish to be as inclusive as possible. One thing we
do is craft birthday parties, as do many Scrapstores. We include face
painting and balloon art as part of the whole package to help us have a
competitive edge in the local birthday party business. We have an
artist/volunteer who uses her talents to paint on the guests using
faces, arms, and legs as her canvases, and we have a balloon
artist/volunteer who at didn't even really want to at first, but is now
amazing (two weeks on YouTube, a five dollar pump and twenty bucks of
balloons is all you need to start). But our need of funding doesn't stop
with the currently small number of parties we have at the art center
(although the word is spreading rapidly and the bookings are
increasing), so we do face painting/balloon art party entertainment
outside the center too. About a third of our income comes from the
parties. It's not easy juggling the financial maters and sometimes we
are very exhausted, but the work is too important and we love it! (more
on love in a moment)
Another facet is that we get the
local preteens (they love to hang out and be helpful) to take apart the
odd broken things like old tools and small kitchen appliances. They get
life skills seeing how things go together and we get motors for
recycling (to the local metal recyclers) and cool and odd parts to sell
as random art parts.
We have the coolest donation box in the world, that helps a bit.
We
do workshops. Most of our workshops are free and when we do list a
donation price on them (generally only the cost of supplies) we still
never turn anyone away for lack of funds. The workshops do not directly
bring in a significant amount of money, but the scrapstore sales on
those days are great.
We have a free bin of stuff that isn't the quality we want to sell but shouldn't go to the landfill. Speaking of which,
and I am not sure how to word this without it getting misinterpreted, we
take donations of almost everything yet we still, through proper display and appropriate cleaning, take great care to make sure that even the snootiest of customers feel comfortable browsing our wares. Even the stuff in the free bin is cleaned to like new.
Our Craft Castle is a free crafting area. (Some scrapstores charge for their crafting areas.)
We give things and services away for free and get more donations, both monetary and scrap items, because of it! People return the love!
We
leased a building in a great location that needed quite a bit of work
and had sat vacant for several years and put a lot of 'sweat equity'
into it instead of money which we didn't have.
We obtained a license as a re-upholstery location and take odd jobs when we can.
For
four years we worked full time jobs and put another full-time workweek
into this project not because we are workaholics but because we knew
that we were investing in our future, a future where our every moment
was immersed in art. And it is working, although no one is getting a
paycheck from this yet, but we don't have to work full-time jobs to
actually support the art center anymore, as it is paying its own basic
bills. Instead we volunteer fourteen hours a day on art center business.
We have lowered our own need for money by growing a garden at home and
canning food, and we still take every odd job that comes to us
and...Well you get the picture, It's a lot of hard work, but it's
getting better (and easier) every day.
Love
When
there is love, it shows. Love is in the little details. I had one of
our regulars hand me a fifty dollar bill a few weeks ago, she thanked
me/us for being there for her and her two grandchildren when she
couldn't afford anything. The thing is we didn't treat her any different
than anyone else, well that's kinda my point. We
treat everyone like they are important,
and don't discriminate. I still don't think that she could really
afford to give us that money, but she saw a need for the services we
provide to the community and wanted to make sure we could keep going. If
you don't love art or recycling or humans (preferably all three) then
this might not be the way for you. On the other hand if you have a
passion for all three, then there is a need for your help in a local
scrapstore, and if there isn't one within ten minutes of where you live
then you might consider starting one. Scrapstores don't have to be open
to the public so you can start one in a basement or garage and grow from
there. Websites can be had for free with no programming skills. Start
with what you have available and if there is love the rest will come
exactly on time. Love is in the details. If you love something it will
show because you will do your best in every little thing you do.
Design
One
thing I notice as I peruse the pictures of scrapstores, is ugly gray
metal shelves. I do understand that there is a place in the massive
warehouse style scrapstores, and I do understand the need to cram as
much as possible into whatever small space you have available, but most
scrapstores are smaller community affairs with an interest in inspiring people. Now I am an artist with no
schooling but hard knocks, and personally I just don't find those
industrial shelving units very inspiring. Frankly they depress me.
Our
mission here is to grow and heal community and teach and inspire recycling
art, so we work hard to have an environment that does just that. We
don't hesitate to use any fantastic donation
to incorporate into the design of the facilities. When you see that
fantastic whatzit and think that would look great incorporated into ____
part of the scrapstore, do it! Remember you are not using up a one of a
kind item, you are permanently putting it on display and showing
everyone that walks through the art center that this is a place of
inspiration and also that there is a need for more items like it which
are squirreled away in attics and basements. The more fantastic things
people can see in your art center the more they will donate things that
are similar. The work and the creativity that you put into your
facilities and the materials that you use up in making your art center a
wonderland environment is very important! Even if you are renting! We
built our shelving (seven year leased space) in the image of a small
village using the same materials that we are trying to teach the public
how to make use of. Be Creative! Have Fun!
Bins work great for holding just about everything. Towards the end of our initial build stage we realized that
old dresser drawers make fantastic large bins,
tilt them slightly towards the front and attach three in a stack
together with a few pretty pieces of wood like trim to the sides and
viola much more inspiring than grey shelving.
For signs go crazy with
decoupage with that vintage ephemera and
little chalkboards are helpful when you have to change items out regularly (that new chalkboard paint is great).
Above all remember that this is an environment that you are planning to
spend a lot of time in and you want it to be a happy, fun, useful,
safe, and easy to navigate space.
Advertising
One last thing,
Finger puppets
can be as simple as two small scraps of fabric sewn together in a u
shape and turned inside out (use those tiny fabric scraps). These can be
decorated in your free crafting area (we recommend low temp hot glue
guns for quick and safe crafting) Beads become eyes and yarn makes great
hair. You will be amazed at the creativity of some of your little
crafters. Well, if you give them a fantastic puppet stage (put some love
into the stage) and tell them the three basic parts of a story,
Character(s) Location(s) and Problem/Solution, and then get them to
create a story and help them along with a creative narrator; In a matter
of about fifteen minutes many of these finger puppets become "Real"
like the velveteen rabbit and then they go out into the world as your
advertising army. In the past year well over 2000 of these fantastical
finger puppets have gone out of our doors and those kids are excitedly
(again, their love of a fantastic wonderland) telling their friends and
boy does the word spread. And word of mouth is the best advertising.
Thank
you for a few moments of your time and I hope this list helps you to
to find out how you can make
your local Creative Reuse/Scrapstore the
best resource for your local community.
Mr. Nobody Special of Art of Recycle
