Free stuff for Mixed Media

One of my biggest pieces of advice for mixed media artist is...make friends with an interior decorator.

You would not believe what kind of stuff they throw away...fabric sample books, wallpaper sample books, trims and cording, large pieces of wood, heavy chunks of marble, ceramic tiles, and more.  The manufacturers of these things give every decorator samples of their products. Then, when they come out with new collections every so often, they discontinue the old stuff and tell the decorators to throw it away. So every single interior decorator, in every home improvement store, in every furniture store, in every paint store, in every city, throws this stuff away! It's insane!

This was 3/4 of the haul from one place, one time!

Any place that sells wallpaper, paint, furniture, drapes, etc. has manufacturer's samples that will sooner or later be discontinued and replaced with new items. Home improvement stores like Home Depot, paint stores like Sherwin Williams, large chain stores that sell custom drapes like JCPenny, furniture stores like Ethan Allen, they all have design centers and those centers have samples. And those samples will sooner or later be garbage.

It's been my experience that some decorators feel horrendous guilt at filling up the dumpster with these stuff and are very glad to give it to someone who could use it. Other decorators are annoyed by me and my request, I'm not sure why. But keep asking. It took me a few tries before I found my connection. My connection now calls me when they have stuff to go. They pile it in a corner and I go pick it up. I try to be very considerate and get there within a day as I don't want them to wish they had just tossed it rather than being forced to trip over it for a day or so. I get way more than I could ever conceivably use, so I get first pick, my artsy friends get second pick, and I Freecycle what's left over.

Here's an example of what I've done with some free supplies...

 The piece is mostly painted fabric. I took some discarded fabric and painted it with stencils and spray paint then sprayed webbing spray over it. Took part of that fabric and made it the background, the rest I rolled up into the tubes. I glued the tubes onto the various paper mattes, which were out of a wallpaper book. So the only part of this piece that cost me was the paint, glue and webbing spray, the rest was free.

This piece, too, was mostly free. The only aspects of this piece that weren't from a decorator is the layer of Gutter Guard (sprayed gold), the seven beads separating the fabric tubes, paint on the cardboard and the glue holding it all together. The rest of it is fabric from the decorator and a layer of corrugated cardboard from an old box.


So go find a decorator...just not mine, please.