In 2009, Autumn Wiggins, founder of of the Strange Folk Festival, organized The Upcycle Exchange, which collects and redistributes reusable arts and crafts materials, including vintage buttons, bottle caps and wine corks, to artists and crafters. UE started with drop-off sites at local arts and crafts events, including the Rock and Roll Crafts Show and Green With Indie; eventually they made the leap to permanent drop-off sites. Now, UE has found a permanent home in Dutchtown in the Flora Building as part of The Collective business incubator. They have a new name, too: The Upcycle Exchange {Materials Market}. The arts and crafts shop offers all kinds of postconsumer goodies for anyone who wants to drop by, including those bottle caps and wine corks, plus vintage jewelry, fabric, bric-a-brac, wallpaper samples, paint, paper ephemera, yarn and more. They are also a pay-as-you-wish business. Per the press release: "Jewelry and beads have a suggested price of $3/ounce and everything else is sold by volume with a suggested price of $20/cart. The store also has a policy of one purchase, per person, per day—only what you can carry out on your own (bulk-sized items can be in addition to that), and shoppers are asked to bring their own bags to carry home purchases. The store utilizes an iPad as their cash register, which accepts credit cards with a Square reader. Customers simply type in what they wish to pay themselves when they check out." Ten percent of the proceeds will be donated to a different charity each month.
{Materials Market} is also kind of a cool accompaniment to the new Goodwill on Vandeventer, which opened last week, and offers clothes by the pound—79 cents per pound, to be exact. All good news for artists and crafters as well as handy, eco-conscious types who want to opt out of fast fashion-stream and make or alter their own clothes, jewelry and interiors...
The Upcycle Exchange {Materials Market}, Opened its doors on April 22 (Earth Day) and will hold its Grand Opening Celebration on June 24 from 6 to 9 p.m. The store is located at 3309 Meramec. For more information call 314-282-7042, or go to UpXChange.com or http://www.facebook.com/UpXChange.
