Up-Cycled Containers for a Home Studio

"I Love Trash"

Anything dirty ,or dingy or dusty...Anything ragged, or rotten, or rusty.  I've always been a scrounger for materials that I could make into something else. As a kid, I would go to the new home building sites in our neighborhood to get wood scraps to paint on or hammer together. Now lowly dumpster diving is a popular trend with shows like "American Pickers" and "Picker Sisters" showing people how to make trash into treasure. In fact it is no longer called recycling but up cycling because you are taking junk and making it into better junk.

We have First Fridays here in Kansas City where old warehouses in a section of town called "The Bottoms" open up and sell antiques and flea market items.  As the name indicates these are held the first weekend of every month. It is a great day trip spent with friends looking for that item you need. So far I've had my eye on:

1) An Autopsy Table to make into a rolling bar

2) Wedding Cake toppers to chop off the heads so I can glue on skeleton pieces for Halloween

3) A metal wire leg brace to make into holder for a large pillar candle

My Interior Designer

On my latest last trip with friends Jim and Sue, I wanted to get some cool containers for the Wine Cellar I converted to a Craft Closet. This is what I found:

Curtain rods and wire baskets (which were white and I spray painted a green metallic bronze) used to hold rolls of burlap, chains, and all my collage stuff (papers, letters, and chip board).

An old wooden desk caddy great for holding tools and smaller items like push pins. Look for these in the clearance aisle at Homegoods. 

This is a metal box from the 1940's that was probably used in a Hardware store.  The lid has all the original "nuts and bolts" markings for the spaces below. For $9 it makes a fun place to store stamps, ink pads, and other assemblage pieces.

These small metal buckets were in a farm machinery bin.  If you become a junker you accept that you will be digging in dusty boxes with the possibility of mouse poop and dead spiders.

Part of your junking supplies

I have no idea what the intended purpose is for these buckets but they make excellent storage for scissors and tools like screwdrivers and pliers. Plus all the farm hardware comes with its own rusty crusty patina-no faux required.

The larger wire piece was intended as an outdoor planter with moss. Now it holds my collection of metal and plastic letters. The gold wire shelf  is from a discount bin in the bath department. It currently keeps my small birch canvases in order.

Now my craft/prop closet is organized.  Complete with one of my Halloween Crows watching over it all.

Let me know when you find a Jackalope!