Whether urged to knit, sew, buy a few pencils, or simply feel felt and fabric, Austin Creative Reuse (ACR) is the destination to go to meet the needs of all types of crafters. There are plenty of name-brand crafting stores out there for crafters searching for materials to go to, like Hobby Lobby, or Michael’s, but small businesses like ACR can provide the same quality of materials in a more sustainable way.
ACR, located in the East Austin neighborhood Windsor Park, is a crafting store that resells donated materials for marked-down prices that can be used in an array of projects. According to their website, ACR’s mission is to protect the environment from waste created by the crafting industry while also celebrating the uniqueness of the Austin art community. To help achieve this goal, ACR hosts workshops and events every week to inspire learning and teach new skills. These events are designed to help foster a strong crafting community. Kat Moulton, ACR operations director, explained that the company strives to engage the neighborhood’s creativity and bolster the Austin area.
“We feel a very strong bond with our local community and try to support them in whatever way we can,” Moulton said. “Including hosting private workshops for the Windsor Park Neighborhood Association, attending their events, and writing content for their neighborhood newsletters.”
ACR has a wide variety of customers, but the main goal for most customers is to enjoy crafting sustainably. Niki Paul, one shopper at ACR, mentioned how she likes that ACR has given her a chance to engage herself in the crafting world in a sustainable manner.
“I don’t go here as frequently as I should,” Paul said. “I love that you get to reuse other people’s treasures and make them new. So much less waste, and it’s really affordable.”
Jaylee Sehr, another shopper at ACR, said her “friends have been here before and said they could’ve spent hours there, which is true.” Although it was her first time, Sehr already thought ACR was “really cool”.
From humble beginnings as an arts-and-crafts shop to the community hub they are today, ACR has experienced immense growth in just half a decade, according to Moulton.
“I am so proud of how our scrappy nonprofit has become such a community staple,” Moulton said. “ACR has been on such a journey of growth over the past four and a half years, and we are projecting even more growth over the same time period coming up. It is incredibly humbling to think about where we started, a 1,600 square foot closet in the Linc (formerly Lincoln Village) Shopping Center, to now occupying a ‘world headquarters’ that is over 11,000 square feet!”
According to Moulton, ACR diverted 2 million pounds of materials from the landfill in their roughly seven years of operation. The organization strongly encourages the Austin community to donate, regardless of purchase.
ACR provides a place for everyone to develop whatever skill or project they want to work on, according to Moulton. This has given people in the community many opportunities to pursue a variety of different crafting endeavors.
Sehr said she was working on a vision board. Paul said she was working on a quilt, and holiday gifts. Other shoppers mentioned working on DnD figurines, sewing pieces for fashion shows, and making toys for their cats.
“[ACR] is a very safe space to allow your creativity to run wild…[and is] a beautiful testament to how diverse each individual is and how our brains all work in different ways,” Moulton said.
