Reduce, reuse, recycle, repurpose is a good mantra for artists. My favorite place to shop for art supplies is at the thrift store. Whether you work in two dimensional, three dimensional or collage you can find tools, materials, framing supplies and inspiration at the thrift store.

Collage

If you are a collage artist you will feel like you hit the jackpot here. Check out the housewares and home décor aisles where you will find “vintage” items that you can deconstruct and insert into your collages. There is a section with belts and purses that you can cut up for interesting pieces of leather and other embellishments.

Jewelry and Beads

If you are a bead person or jewelry maker check out the costume jewelry. Sometimes it’s cheaper to take apart a necklace and re-use the beads rather than go to a bead shop.

Dolls for Armatures

The toy aisle is one of my favorite places. I actually use Barbie dolls for armatures. I cut off their hair and strip them bare, nail their feet to a board, position them and begin covering them with clay. The ones with bendable arms and legs work best. Sometimes I think this is just a flimsy cover up for a therapeutic exercise designed to exact revenge on the Barbie toting little girls club to which I did not belong – but I digress …ahem. So pressing on…

Framing and Canvases

You will see a lot of bad art in good frames hanging on the walls. You can often re-use the canvas the glass and the frames. This is a huge savings if you have a little skill at framing. Just a couple caveats though about re-using framing material is that you should probably not reuse the mats and backing board unless you are sure that they are acid free high quality material and it is unlikely that the glass is UV protective glass. Save the old mats and backing boards to use for hand made paper.

Books, Journals, Cards and Scrapbooks

There are tons of used cheap books and magazines that can be re-purposed for creating journals and altered books. You can find boxes of old greeting cards to repurpose with your own designs.

Those of you who make cards and scrapbook pages can find wonderful embellishments. Look for old dresses and shirts that have unique buttons, belts and snaps. A three dollar blouse might yield ten dollars worth of beautiful buttons and embellishments. Purses, belts and jewelry are another source of embellishments.

The possibilities are endless. You only need your imagination and a few dollars in your pocket.

Visit these articles for more creative ideas and inspiration

https://knoji.com/creating-handmade-paper-pulp-in-your-kitchen/

https://knoji.com/mold-making-for-casting-handmade-paper-pulp/

https://knoji.com/different-types-of-clay-used-in-art/

https://knoji.com/how-to-start-an-antique-business-setting-up-shop-in-an-antique-mall/