KC Cares: Repurposed re-invention at Magpie Creative Reuse Collective
A group of Girl Scouts works on making braided headbands during a Magpie Creative Reuse Collective class. // Photo by Beth Lipoff
If you want to get crafty but don’t have a big supply budget or a lot of experience, the Magpie Creative Reuse Collective might be the place for you. The nonprofit specializes in pairing education with redistributing all kinds of materials.
“We teach classes that take the material we have available and in the class, people learn one way of upcycling or downcycling. We also teach repair, and we want to do more of that in the future,” Magpie Director of Education Keli Campbell says.
Everything from pipe cleaner flowers and old t-shirt headbands to visible mending has been on its recent class list. For some classes, they’ll hire local artists to teach, and some Campbell and others teach themselves. Anything’s fair game for a project, even old microscope slides.
“We named it Magpie because, mythologically, magpies like to collect, so we’re really about the collections bit. I think all of us who are volunteers like the idea of treasure collections. The whole idea about the magpie is that we’re collecting special items, and not everything is trash—Some of it is treasure,” Campbell says.
Keli Campbell, director of education at Magpie Creative Reuse Collective, hands out pieces of fabric while teaching a class on how to make headbands. // Photo by Beth Lipoff
They’ve partnered with local libraries, the Girl Scouts, and other nonprofits to offer lessons. Classes for both kids and adults are on the schedule, and they meet in a variety of locations around the metro.
On Saturdays and Sundays, Magpie opens shop at 1522 Holmes St. from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. to sell gently used craft supplies. For $25, you can fill a large bag.
“We do some of the work to help keep things useful and available for people who need those things,” Campbell says.
And if you’ve got odds and ends from your own projects you want to get off your hands, they collect donations on Sundays from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. and Wednesdays from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Between August 2024 and April 2025, they processed 10,390 pounds of donations, and they always need volunteers to help sort them.
“Because we’re trying to serve artists and makers, we’re willing to process stuff that’s a little strange or bizarre or offcut. We know that creatives like a real diverse set of material to work with,” Campbell says.
Keli Campbell, director of education at Magpie Creative Reuse Collective, shows a Girl Scout how to finish a braided headband made with scrap fabric during one of the non-profit’s classes. // Photo by Beth Lipoff
Recently, they had classes where they took old vinyl banners from various businesses and organizations and transformed them into crossbody bags.
Jennifer Tufts has volunteered with Magpie and also taken several classes. In one session, she learned how to make a witch’s bell decoration for her door that involved making a paper collage and soldering pieces of glass together.
“Those were definitely skills I hadn’t used before. It’s amazing that, in a couple hours one night, I made this whole new work that I didn’t even know how you made it before that night,” Tufts says. “I definitely think that’s something Magpie is great at doing is creating these sessions where an artisan gives you the information you need to kind of enter into their practice and then you can continue to learn from there.”
Keli Campbell, director of education at Magpie Creative Reuse Collective, teaches a group of Girl Scouts to make braided headbands from leftover fabric. // Photo by Beth Lipoff
Ultimately, Campbell says they’d like to get a permanent space for the store and for the various classes like the ones Tufts attended. That would allow them to get tools like a fabric granulator that can turn fabric scraps into filling for a stuffed animal.
“We want to make sure that artists and makers—if they’re wanting to make products out of reused material—they have a regular supply of those materials. They have tools they need to transform those materials. They have the knowledge they need to transform materials. As we build, we’re going to be building those resources as well,” Campbell says.
She hopes to partner with more nonprofits in the metro area as the collective grows.
For more information about Magpie Creative Reuse Collective and its classes, visit magpiecreativereuse.org.
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