We weren’t sure what to expect since no one has ever really tried this before, but our very first Upcycle Exchange was an amazing success! Thanks to the STL Craft Mafia for hosting us, and of course, all of you that collected and brought in items on our wish-list! Every single artist that participated went home with a treasure trove of the specific items they asked for. Heavily requested supplies like fabric, paper, sewing notions and trims were donated in such abundance that we even gave non-participating vendors the opportunity to acquire goodies which were sorted and arranged for them to choose from at the end of the show.

Here you see Autumn doing her best E.T. imitation amidst a mountain of donations. Now mind you this was merely 3 hours into the show on Saturday! That quantity more than tripled by closing time on Sunday. Once we got into the groove of sorting(and confiscated some more bins to do so), it was a lot of fun to run the booth! The best part was hearing the stories of the items we were collecting. Many people expressed the original intentions they had for their belongings, and why they had hesitated before to dispose of them, or give them up to the anonymous abyss of a thrift store. To many of them, there was comfort in knowing for sure that the materials would be put to good use, and help local artists make a living. Others found a thrill in collecting and hunting for items on the list. So if nothing else, we concluded it’s just plain fun to keep junk out of landfills! In the end, all that was left over was about a lunch bag full of fabric and paper scraps.

Our make-and-take project, a cute plant pot made from soup cans and leftover yarn, was a big hit with everyone too!

What’s next? Get ready, because we’re going to be at just about every indie craft show in St. Louis this summer! Our next exchange will be at Artropy, an event produced by Show-Me-Etsy, on April 25th. Stay tuned for the new wish-list! (We’ll keep the expired one up for now, just as an example)