Ah yes, the fun place I had the opportunity to visit today.  The Scrap Exchange.  It’s a place where scraps come together!  Industrial discards and donations of all kinds keep this place full of “stuff” to make art with.

 

How to shop:  You can buy a bag to fill up with bin items or just browse around and buy individually-priced items that are not bag items.  Or you can do both.

Wall paper or fabric scraps, anyone?  They are great for dollhouse stuff.

This corner is full of craft books and, well, as you can see, stuff.  And nonsense. 

‘Twas on this shelf that I found three great books today.  Tomorrow I’ll show you the treasures I found.

Like I said:  stuff and nonsense.  But it’s really, really fun stuff.

Looking across the store, you can see the bins of items that are considered bag items.  There are bag limits on some items.  What a lot of stuff!

Reminds me of the way my kids used to climb on the furniture when they were little.  Well, maybe they weren’t that bad.

Need a wire for something?  I am sure that there’s something to be done with all these scraps of wires.

Now, these windows were really calling out to me, and the one in front is a beautiful shabby pink on the other side.  But, I don’t need old windows.  I have my own old windows sitting around the house now with nothing to do.

More scraps.  The glass thingys in the box looked interested I mean interesting.  I stood there wondering what I could do with them.  They look like they could be stacked somehow to make a greenhouse wall.  Cool.

This entire sectional holds tiles, of all colors, sizes, and styles.  I thought of putting a tile floor in a dollhouse room.  It would work, you know. 

Delightful wood doo-dad, anyone?  Are you sure?

I wondered if I should get one of these rusty horseshoes, polish it up and hang it over the door at home. 

Oh, the paper section!  They have paper by the pound and just unusual scraps of posters, playbills, calendars and all kinds of stuff, individually priced, from which — if you are a scrappy-wordy person, you can get neat pictures and words from.  Do you love words as much as I do?  Of all fonts and colors?  Mmmmmm.

You see all kinds of stuff sitting around in The Scrap Exchange.  Some of it is for sale.  Crafty-artsy items that you might want to buy.

I thought these little paper grab-boxes looked like fun.  One seemed to have some interesting words that I could use, so I bought it for 1.75.  I won’t know ’til I get it home.

 More paper scraps.  Princess of the Universe loves to come in here and get stuff for her art desk.

Oh, my vintage-pattern-loving-blog-girlfriends, I thought of you today.  Yes I did.  Just look at the vintage patterns. 

I can see it now.  Vintage pattern collectors gone wild.

Quilters, you too.

And would you look at this bin of old spools?  Aren’t they beautiful?  I mean, just the spools alone make this place fantastical.  At least to me.

Just thought you might want to know that there’s a housewares section, too.  I did find a really wonderful lamp, but I didn’t get it.  I was trying to keep myself under control.  Somewhat.

And look at the cards.  There are three racks like this!  Talk about finding cards for The Art Wall.  I saw a lot of Monets, but I left off looking because I had other, more specific things that I wanted to procure.

That’s all the pictures I have for you, but they also have an art gallery which I think is currently being re-done.  Anyhoo, I felt like you would “get the picture” with my current selection of Scrap Exchange photos.

So what do you think of The Scrap Exchange? 

Does your town/city have anything like this? 

It’s a great way to recycle!

Lynn

PS - It’s also a great place to take well-behaved children for a time of plundering and buying of “creating” supplies.