On Upcycling

I am a super thrifty person and I will upcycle, recycle, and repurpose everything I can.

I share my studio space with my husband. We have room for him to have his own music room, but he likes coming in here and playing guitar while I work sometimes. It’s a thrifty use of space; so that’s one aspect of “upcycling” if you will.

With few exceptions, almost everything in my studio is upcycled or repurposed:

• My design wall is a large swath of black felt I bought at Goodwill (black is my preferred color for design walls)

• My sewing table is a former writing desk of ours and the wooden shelves are from our library when we redesigned/redecorated our rooms

• My cutting table and chest of drawers are from my mom’s house from when I was a child

• Most of my baskets, boxes, lamps, etc. in the studio are either repurposed from other rooms in the house or bought from thrift stores

I am reluctant to purchase new unless I absolutely have to. I will even buy fabric and beads from garage sales and thrift stores. I can always find a use for something in a new capacity. Even some of the notebooks I use in the studio (to make notes or drawings) were once my daughter’s in high school, and that’s 10 years ago now.

My upcycling motto is: “If it ain’t broke, use it until it is.”