Holy Cow! Maker Faire!!

Maker Faire is on it's way! April is a busy busy month for the Scrap Exchange with fairs and festivals of our own to tend to but you've gotta check this one out as well. This event is all about the D.I.Y. creative spirit and sharing your skills with your community of makers, creators, crafters and friends. All self respecting creative reusers need to drop by and strut their stuff!

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See you there!

Fancy Cake!

Check it out!  Rheada Wilson found supplies at the Scrap Exchange to assist her in making this fabulous castle cake.  

She said her daughter "drew at least 20 pictures and even brought home a castle book from school to make sure I knew what she meant... I got all the tubes and dowels I needed at the Scrap Exchange, along with many other project inspiring things.  I made the inside a marble of chocolate and vanilla, filled with strawberry buttercream and covered it in marshmallow fondant. I went out on a limb and followed the advice of the experts and make all my icings from scratch, and I am glad that I did."

Sounds delicious! Maybe you can come make some more cakes for us... my birthday's coming up!

Thanks for sharing, Rheada. 

If you have something super amazing that you made from Scrap Exchange materials, send us pictures so we can put you on the blog!  (store@scrapexchange.org)

Good TV

"The Secret Life of Machines" which ran from 1988 to 1994 was probably the greatest TV program ever to air anywhere in the world.  Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod make radio, internal combustion, photocopying, VCRs and all sorts of other mysterious machines seem friendly and downright cute.  Through animation and kooky contraptions they show you the viewer how anyone could make a Xerox machine right at home!

What does this have to do with reuse you ask?  EVERYTHING!  Now you can throw out your fax machine and build one yourself out of trash!  Seriously, watch these shows, learn how to create electromechanical, animatronic installation art out of your old vacuum cleaner and never throw anything away again.  Seriously.

Creative Reuse Hero: Jean Shin

Check out another one of our favorite Creative Reuse artists! Jean Shin creates wonderful installations using multiples of various items she collects from around her community.





Please go to her site and check out the close ups of the trophies, they are all modified to represent everyday people and their professions. Totally cool.

Hey, I hear that the Scrap Exchange has lots of cool items in vast quantities... road trip???

But I have ...

If you have drink pouches, chip bags, or even those terrible Lunchables things you can send them to this place!

Terracycle.net

They will give you about 2 cents per item (depending on what it is) and turn it into some sort of product; a lunch bag, a bow, backpack etc. which they then sell online or at stores like Walmart, Target, Kmart, Home Depot and so on.

Your other option is not to buy any of that stuff in the first place...