Craigslist love affair

As many of you know, though some of you who are newer may not, my company (Lulu's Upcycling Lounge) is based on using used and secondhand materials and upcycling/recycling/repurposing them in my finished products. This has never been a problem for my textile products because I could easily find old t-shirts, sheets, fabric, yarn, fabric samples, neckties etc. to turn into hats, scarves, headbands, purses, brooches, bracelets, necklaces (and the list goes on and on!).

Discovering mixed media art proved to be a new challenge for me. I have been able to find wood plaques and some used canvases to paint over easily enough from thrift stores, but I would have to buy all the painting supplies new. This wasn't the end of the world because I do have to buy some supplies new (i.e. thread, snaps), but as I delved more into the art world, there were more and more supplies that I wanted to have and experiment with!

Enter craigslist. I love browsing craigslist. Love, love, love. I have found items on there to use for my booth display, I use it to find garage sales in my area, I sell nonbusiness related items on there... it's just such a great resource. I've developed the habit of routinely browsing the arts & crafts section to see what items are up for grabs, and just last week I scored some big deals.

It's funny how things work out... I made some art pieces as gifts this past xmas, and I thought to myself "I would like to try painting on some larger canvases." What do you know, I found a man selling his daughter's old canvases that she was unable to bring with her to Seattle. There were 8 in total: 1- 10"x30", 3- 30"x30", 2- 36"x36", 1- 30"x40" and 1- 36"x48". Most of them are gallery depth too!! I emailed the guy to see if I could get a discount if I bought all 8, and he gave me 30% off!! I did have to drive about 35-40 min to get them, but it was worth it! The only downside was that I underestimated just how big these canvases were and I took my small car. Oops!

I did manage to fit them in, but my poor girl looked like she was in a canvas cave!! She didn't mind though. She's looking forward to painting on them with me.

I set them up at home to admire them and take a picture. Sooooo sweeeeeeeeeet!!!!!! Then a thought hit me... "Do I even have enough paint for these?" My paints all fit into one teeny drawer... I would definitely need more... and then destiny appeared...

That very night I found a listing where a woman was liquidating her art supplies because she wasn't as passionate for painting as she thought she would be. She went through and itemized each item, and many of the products were not even used yet! It would have cost me a small fortune to buy each of these items new. I had to have it! I began the email exchange process, and out of the 3 prospective buyers, she chose me :). Yippeee!!! Yahooo!!! Hooray!!!!! I think this may quite possibly be the deal of the year, or maybe the century!! 

When picking up the supplies, I stayed to chat with the lovely lady for about an hour. She is such a sweetheart and has such a creative spirit. She actually lives fairly close to me, so I invited her over for an art playdate :). I felt bad that she was giving up on painting... even though I benefited from it. She said she will take me up on the painting offer, so with some luck, I can make that a future blog :).