West Asheville’s New Art Supply Thrift Shop Wants Your Forgotten Materials

​If you’ve ever found yourself standing in the craft aisle at a big box store, squinting at an overpriced glue gun and wishing for something a little less sterile and a whole lot more affordable, there’s good news on Haywood Road. West Asheville is about to welcome something it’s been missing: a creative reuse center-slash-art supply thrift store, bursting at the seams with everything from zippers and sequin trim to paper goods and leatherworking tools.

ReMix It is a new nonprofit arts space led by Executive Director Amanda Wilde, who is transitioning from a career in digital design to pursue a more hands-on, community-driven approach to creativity. Opening on Earth Day, April 22, ReMix It aims to fill the gap left by the recent closure of Joann Fabrics in Asheville. But it offers much more than gently used fabric or craft supplies. ReMix It aspires to become West Asheville’s new third space: a welcoming gathering place, a creative environment for all ages, and a hub for sustainable, craft-focused initiatives.

A Much-Needed Solution for West Asheville’s ‘Craft Desert’

Most people know their way around Joann’s or Michaels, but mention a creative reuse store, and you’ll likely get blank stares. “I tell them ReMix It is an art supply thrift store,” Amanda explains. “That usually clears it up.”

Amanda traces the idea for ReMix It back to her time in Portland, Oregon, about fifteen years ago, when she first discovered a creative reuse center and immediately recognized it as “a cool thing that exists in the world.” After relocating to West Asheville in 2020, she found herself longing for something similar—local, scrappy, and distinct from the typical big-box chain experience.

At the time, East Asheville had Joann’s; the River Arts District had Cheap Joe’s. But in West Asheville, Amanda saw a “craft desert,” a void that only deepened when both stores closed their doors in 2025. “It felt really wrong to have an art community without any art stores,” she recalls. Although Asheville Art Supply eventually took over the old Cheap Joe’s location, Amanda knew the neighborhood needed something new—something it could truly call its own.

Scrappy Beginnings and Community Buy-In

Opening any nonprofit is a leap, but launching an art supply thrift store requires the whole community to buy in. Amanda used her fundraising experience from her daughter’s school PTA to rally support for something bigger. She attended festivals, hosted free Creature Lab pop-ups and collage nights, and essentially became Asheville’s resident ambassador for repurposed materials. In 2025 alone, she organized 17 free public events, all aimed at drumming up excitement about what Remix It could become.

Fundraising topped out at $50,000 after a flurry of sticker sales, business card swaps, and one particularly memorable community art fundraiser: Patchesss, Asheville’s Longest Fabric Snake. (The 100-foot patchwork serpent now winds through the ArtsvilleUSA gallery at the Ferguson Family YMCA through April 2026.) By February 2025, Remix It was a registered nonprofit, complete with a board of directors—including Craft Your Commerce’s Jamie Karolich—and a monthly inbox full of people offering donations.

Donations quickly became both the store’s lifeblood and its biggest logistical hurdle. Before opening day, Amanda had so much material stockpiled that she had to pause donations for a month just to process the mountain of supplies. “I probably get two to three emails a day asking when we are going to be accepting donations again,” she laughs.

At a time when arts nonprofits are scrambling to find funding and adjust to the new normal, Remix It’s funding model relies on what Amanda calls good old-fashioned self-sufficiency. The store is the heart of operations: Donations come in, materials are resold at affordable prices, and programming runs off the resulting revenue stream. Grants, she explains, are a bonus, not the backbone.

A Third Place for Asheville’s Makers

Step into Remix It, and it’s immediately clear that the shop is meant for mingling and gathering. The open warehouse layout on Haywood Road is split into zones: a well-organized retail area for shopping, a cozy “library” with couches and shelves full of art books, and a craft bar for spontaneous bursts of making. The star attraction is a workshop room ready to host everything from community classes to birthday parties, all powered by donated materials.

As for the donations they can’t sell, “we’ll put it in the makerspace so that it doesn’t go to waste and people can reuse it for other things.”

Booking for the makerspace is required to keep things manageable for the small staff, but spontaneity is encouraged wherever possible. The vision is for Remix It to be a place where art happens on the fly, community connections are forged, and donated supplies find new life in unexpected hands.

Sustainability in Action at ReMix It

What sets Remix It apart is the underlying ethic: environmental, practical, and deeply communal. Amanda is a lifelong thrifter who finds just as much satisfaction in salvaging a bag of zippers as she does in creating something from scratch.

But really, it’s about giving dignity to the things people just can’t bear to send to landfill—the bins of leatherworking tools, the sequined trim, the leftover fabric from a loved one’s hobby. “We’re giving them a place where they can give that stuff a new life with a clean conscience,” she says. And the community? “They’re very, very thankful to have somewhere to take it and excited to shop,” Amanda reports.

Remix It will open its doors on April 22 at 202 Haywood Road, and if the demand in Amanda’s inbox is any indication, Asheville’s artists and hobbyists are about to have a field day. Who knows what you’ll find—or make—when you walk in? That, says Amanda, is kind of the point.

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All images published with permission of ReMix It and Amanda Wilde; featured image: Amanda Wilde, UNCA Sustainability Fair 2025.