Come to Remainders. Those hot deals you got a Joann’s are an everyday thing here.
Toban Nichols, director of education & development at
Remainders
The arts and crafts world was shaken to its core earlier this year when craft store behemoth Joann Fabrics announced it would be closing up shop for good. It shuttered 255 locations in April, followed by the remaining 500 in May. These closures follow the company’s filing for bankruptcy not once but twice within a year. It’s the end of an era. But on the other side of that token, Joann’s demise represents an opportunity for small businesses that are more than ready to fill the Joann Fabrics-sized arts and crafts supply void. Small businesses like Remainders Creative Reuse, in Pasadena, CA.
Situated just east of Los Angeles and serving LA County since 2018, Remainders is a nonprofit dedicated to providing arts and crafts supplies and resources to the community, all the while benefiting the environment. Remainders receives donations of used and unwanted arts supplies, which it then sells back to artists, crafters, and strapped educators at a fraction of their original cost. Used supplies that would otherwise be thrown away and destined for a landfill are instead given a second life, up-cycled by another creator.
Remainders is far from the only business of this kind, with many others located throughout the country. I have a personal relationship with Remainders as an Angeleno myself, but I’ve been to and have heard about a handful of others in other parts of the country. These include Scrap (San Francisco), Austin Creative Reuse (Austin), Scraps KC (Kansas City), and Materials for the Arts NYC (New York). With a conglomerate as dominant as Joann Fabrics vanishing from the arts and crafts supply space, these mom-and-pop shops are ready to seize the moment. Many have been around for years, and it’s high time customers looked to them as their go-to place for fabric, paper, buttons, and everything in between.
Remainders’ director of education & development, Toban Nichols, answered a few of my questions below to shed more light on the nonprofit’s mission and how Joann Fabrics’ closure has impacted them so far. (Interview lightly edited for length and clarity.)
Can you describe what Remainders is, its mission, and how you benefit the local crafting community?
Started in 2018 as a weekly garage sale in our executive director’s garage, Remainders is now a full 501c3 nonprofit creative space and arts and crafts thrift store. We are focused on creative reuse and sustainability in our 7,000 square foot space located in Pasadena, CA.
Thanks to the creative reuse model used in our arts and crafts thrift store, hundreds of thousands of pounds of usable materials are diverted from landfills because households and businesses have donated to us. Our creative space has hosted many intergenerational workshops, bringing together a diverse group of people to learn from each other. By recycling and promoting creative reuse, Remainders helps people contribute to the healing of the environment and raises awareness about the benefits of up-cycling raw materials and repurposing usable goods, as opposed to buying these materials new.
We benefit the community by supplying low-to-no cost classes and workshops, donating materials to other non-profit organizations and schools, along with our arts and crafts thrift store that offers any kind of art, craft, and sewing supply at an extremely reasonable cost.
It frustrates me a little to hear people so upset when what I feel is a better alternative already exists.
What are your general thoughts on the closure of Joann Fabrics? How did that news originally land with you and the rest of the Remainders team?
While I think it’s sad that a place that meant so much to crafters and makers for a long time is closed, and I have seen many folks online lamenting the loss and wondering what they’ll do now, it makes me wonder whether they know that places like ours exist in many cities.
Sometimes I think Remainders has become very popular and everyone knows what we do, and other times I realize that the world is huge, and we are but a small facet of it. It frustrates me a little to hear people so upset when what I feel is a better alternative already exists. Maybe they do know, and used materials aren’t their “thing.”
There’s a vibrant, creative and very joyful community that has built itself around us, and we welcome anyone to join in the fun.
As for us as a team and a business, my hope is that people now find us and get back some of that magic they feel they lost. There’s a vibrant, creative and very joyful community that has built itself around us, and we welcome anyone to join in the fun. I think the team overall is hopeful that people will find their way to us.
Have you noticed a shift in your sales and energy at Remainders since Joann Fabrics closed? Has there been an uptick in business?
I wouldn’t say there’s been a shift in energy; we were already burgeoning with amazing positive vibes, but there’s definitely been a shift in sales. We are seeing an uptick across the entire business, not just in sales, but also in people donating to us. My thought is maybe they went to get the great going-out-of-business deals at Joann’s, and now we’ve seen a trickle down from that in many ways. Also, a lot of folks don’t realize that we have classes and workshops until they come to the shop, so I’ve seen those pick up steam as well.
What’s your advice to arts and crafts shoppers now that Joann Fabrics is gone? How should people go about shopping for their supplies?
Easy: come to Remainders. Those hot deals you got a Joann’s are an everyday thing here. Also, take a look at what you already have and use those supplies, or donate them to someone who can use them if you can’t.
What are other small business craft stores around the US that people should shop at?
Scrap in San Francisco, Austin Creative Reuse, Scraps KC, Materials for the Arts NYC— they are everywhere these days. Even in our own burg, we have Quilting for Community, which is like a sister organization to us, and Suay Shop. It’s a great feeling to know there are so many places around the nation where people are reusing materials and up-cycling. There are too many more to list, but Googling “Reuse Centers” is a great way to find something near you. And of course, if you’re in the LA area, come see us!
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