Where Trash Becomes Treasure

CHERYL KANZINGER’s enchantment with crafting started at an early age. She recalls her grandfather, who worked for Singer Corporation, often returning from tradeshows with fabric, buttons, and thread for her to play with. She began learning how to sew when she was five. 

“My mother taught me how to read a pattern, but I’m mostly self-taught,” says Kanzinger, who sewed her own wedding dress. “I like the satisfaction of creating something practical but at the same time allowing for the creativity and artistic side.”

Her lifelong passion for the creative arts inspired her to open The Crafty Krab, a new creative reuse center in the Silver Lake area of Wilmington. The shop features a wide collection of colorful yarn, bolts of patterned fabric, paint, crafting supplies, frames, and much more. But unlike a typical arts and crafts store, everything at The Crafty Krab has been donated.

Kanzinger had never heard of a creative reuse center until her oldest daughter began working at The Scrappy Elephant in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2022. As a photographer, her daughter had always been creative, but her creativity really blossomed when she started working there, according to her mother. Kanzinger visited The Scrappy Elephant, spoke with store’s owner, SARAH SWEET, and began researching the possibility of bringing a similar type of business to the Wilmington area.

Creative reuse centers accept donated new and gently used arts and craft supplies along with other items that can be made into art, keeping them out of landfills and at affordable prices. The Crafty Krab opened on June 28 with more than 4,500 pounds of creative materials donated by the Wilmington community. Plus, all of the center’s furniture and fixtures, from tables and chairs to shelves, are recycled and repurposed.

In opening The Crafty Krab, Kanzinger also took inspiration from how she feels when she creates art. “What really solidified and brought me here was that I felt so much better personally and mentally when I was creating things,” she says. “With where we are in the world right now, I felt like I wanted to make the opportunity to create available to more people. It’s not about creating to be able to sell. There is value in just creating for the sake of creating.”

Kanzinger and her husband, BILL, moved to Wilmington twenty-four years ago from Cleveland, Ohio, to be closer to extended family and raise their children near the beach. With degrees in marketing and elementary education, Cheryl Kanzinger held a variety of jobs, including as a hotel reservation manager, elementary school teacher, and seamstress for an upscale furniture store, before landing in technical theater.

When her now-adult children started participating in theater as middle schoolers, she began volunteering with costume design, building on her sewing background. Her beginning as a part-time parent volunteer evolved into fifteen years with the middle and high school theater program at Cape Fear Academy. During this time, Cheryl Kanzinger designed costumes for about seventy productions, served as the technical theater assistant, and taught sewing and fashion design. Each show often involved multiple costume changes for each character. Kanzinger says the record was a production of Legally Blonde that involved more than 350 unique costumes. 

Her theatrical experience taught her practical skills, such as how to lay flooring or repurpose furniture, and perhaps more importantly, it instilled confidence and inspired her creatively.

“It showed me my creative side and ideally let me embrace it,” she says. “Even though I didn’t have a background in theater, I still felt supported in all of my ideas and felt like a contributing member of the department and felt like my ideas were respected.” 

True to her background in teaching, Cheryl Kanzinger plans to offer a range of classes this fall at The Crafty Krab. She wants to offer the likes of knitting, crocheting, jewelry-making, book binding, and sewing classes for children and adults. “I’m looking for teachers who are passionate about sharing their art,” she says. “I would like to have a calendar full of classes available.” 

In the near future, crafters can also use the store’s Krab Lab to create functional items such as home decor, jewelry, and gifts. The Krab Lab will feature laser and 3D printers, and Glowforge, Cricut, sewing, serger, and embroidery machines.

The store’s rentable studio and classroom space is available for anyone to use a wide array of supplies. While there are no mandated guidelines – just an invitation to be creative – models and instructions for various project ideas are available. 

“Sometimes, going into a big box retail store, you are shown what to do with things,” Cheryl Kanzinger says. “A place like this, I hope people will see there is more than one way to use it or be inspired with it.”

Looking ahead, she says she envisions The Crafty Krab as “a thriving community of caring makers.”

“I also see it as a safe place for people to create, gather, and be inspired,” she says.  “I really want this to be a place for people to find joy, or if need be, relief or escape, by gathering to find community.”

To view more of photographer Daria Amato’s work, go to dariaphoto.com

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