Sources for material
I know that some of the places I’m going to mention are givens. But, I’ll list them anyway, just as a stream of consciousness. You have your usual craft supply stores like Joann’s, Michael’s, AC Moore, Hobby Lobby, etc, for things like grommets, eyelets, beads, wire, stamps, inks, paints, pens, along with all the specialized tools that go along with all those things. You have good sources of online places like Ebay, American Science and Surplus (www.sciplus.com) where you can find all sorts of strange things you can add to projects including many things you may never have thought of. Of course you have your thrift stores and garage sales and flea markets which may take a little more work to sift through all the stuff that people are offering, not to mention that with the popularity of antique hunting and altered arts growing, many people selling the junk at the flea markets want and arm and a leg for stuff you could have formerly have gotten for spare change. Don’t forget to look at your local hardware stores for all kinds of interesting screws, fasteners, and what not. Last, but not least, keep your eyes open EVERYWHERE you go for things on the ground that people have discarded that can be perfect gems for your next project. I found a black checker in our back yard, a red checker on a walk with the kids at the park when we were on our way to the bathroom, and a great Yoohoo bottletop on the sidewalk, while walking the dog. Great! Not only because I like the design of the Yoohoo top, but I don’t like Yoohoo, so I would never come by one on my own. As time moves on and hopefully more ideas come to me about how to get my hands on more of these unique little junk finds I will post them here.
I live near Durham, North Carolina and there is a little gem of a place called The Scrap Exchange that has all kinds of cool junk and scraps that is an absolute altered artist heaven! You can look them up online at www.scrapexchange.org.
Don’t forget though… tell everyone you know about what you are doing and that you will happily rescue their junk items, so the next time they are organizing, they will think of giving you all those junky little treasures all of us artists love to collect.
