...bringers of bats, crows, owls, spiders and other interesting re-purposed art...

“The worlds junk is a creative [wo]man’s treasure.”

~ Unknown

About a month ago, I bought an amazing 1870s cast iron cemetery fence angel from Squashapenny Junction. I had several ideas what I should do with it but in the end I decided that I loved it just the way it was—rusty. I have been trying to come up with the perfect stand idea but I just couldn’t figure it out so this morning I went to one of my favorite Center of the Universe stores ReFunkIt.   

Wendy Doyle and Christiane Riederer are the owners/artists who bring together regional artists along with their own work to sell up-cycled/ re-purposed Art. Besides having such a cool mission, they're both really interesting, amazing women! They're the type of people you instantly want to befriend.

My first purpose was nearly five years ago. I walked in the store and found a repurposed spider (pictured above) that Wendy had made. He was the cutest thing and I was certain that nobody would love him as much as I would. While he was intended to be yard art, he has always lived indoors on the coffee table. 

After that, I bought a funny face yard art stake (below). This year a morning glory vine has decided to intertwine itself so that it looks like it now has some hair. I added a crow’s feather that I found in my yard.

Recently, I bought a crow and my fella bought an owl- both yard art (pictured above). It isn't that ReFunkIt only has yard art. It's just that I pretty much love re-purposed pieces to add to my garden... I've purchased original art, posters, jewelry and even mittens from them.

“Life is full of beauty. Notice it.”

~Ashley Smith

A few weeks ago, I dropped in to see if they would take some cactus cuttings from my fella’s up-for-sale-house's Mr. Cactus. The cactus is nearly as tall as I am and we were both certain that the new owner wouldn’t know what to do with such a large cactus so we cut back the *ears*. The great thing about cactus cuttings is that one now has several cacti that simply need to be planted; since we didn’t need a dozen clippings I thought that I would ask Wendy at ReFunkIt if they could do something with them. She took them! 

Today I went in with my cemetery fence angel to see if they could work their magic to come up with an idea for a stand and ended up chatting a long time with Christiane. I was delighted to see that they already had some Halloween- related art and I ended up bringing home one of Christiane’s bat bottle creations! 

Stay tuned to see what the cemetery fence angel stand turns out to be. I have no idea but I'm sure it will be original and cool!!! Plus, I cannot wait to see what they have in store for fall!