Noelle Hyzy ,

Departments

In a green world where we need to conserve everything, the Reclaimed to Fame market has stepped up to create beautiful recycled products for the people of 1000Markets.com. From cans to keys to old LPs, they use practically anything to create their great items. Majorie, of the shop MarjoriesCracked, opened Reclaimed to Fame on January 9th of this year, and she already has a pretty nice and diversified marketplace. Who would have thought that recycled items would look so nice? It must be true that one person’s trash is another’s treasure.

Can you tell us a bit about your Market?
Reclaimed to Fame is a market for recycled products that once were used and unwanted and now are restored to their glory!

Our world has changed in recent years and the concepts of "going green" and "global warming" are much talked about topics. People have become more conscious of the need to recycle and are looking for ways to implement recycling in all areas of their lives. Products and materials that were once thrown away without a thought are now being incorporated into new products in so many creative ways. People are now accepting the responsibility of preserving and protecting the environment and resources for future generations.

Our market is dedicated to those ideals and our products show the creativity of artistic minds in the world of handcrafted recycling. We offer innovative products that often times you've never even dreamt of: handbags made from men's ties, cuffs and jewelry made from belts, purses and trays made from record albums, halter tops made from vintage scarves - even artwork on palm fronds!

What are your Market's general goals?
Our primary goal is to provide our customers with unique innovative products, all handcrafted and recycled. Our merchants are true artists and each of them aims to create work that is both artistic and useful. We strive to offer our customers quality merchandise and superior service.

How many members are currently part of your Market?

We currently have 43 merchants in our market. I'm very selective about choosing merchants and am seeking quality rather than quantity. I also accept only one merchant per craft (i.e. we will only have one sea glass jewelry shop or one shop offering purses designed from cigar boxes) to keep our products diversified.

How does one go about joining your

Market?
Merchants seeking admission into this market must design their products by recycling used materials into new products. The products must be mostly comprised of recycled material. This market is exclusively for recycled products and therefore an applicant's shop must only carry recycled products. This is a juried market. If you have a 1000 Markets shop and feel that it meets the above criteria, please contact me at info@marjoriescracked.com.

What are the benefits of becoming a member?
Joining our market will give shops more exposure on 1000 Markets. We work together to promote our market to the public in an effort to bring more traffic to each shop. We are a group of merchants who are bonded by our efforts to create quality recycled products. We're supportive of each other and strive to promote each other in any way that we can.

What does your Market do to help each other?
As manager of the market, I personally conduct interviews of the merchants and/or the merchants send their biographies and blog postings to me, which I post on the market's blog and my own personal blog. I also have a connection with Athena Magazine (a terrific online publication, focused on fashion and lifestyle) and submit our interviews and postings for publication on their weblog. Our merchants post features of other merchants on their blogs. We let each other know of any opportunities that we find that may be of benefit to each of us.

How does your Market connect with each other?
We connect through our Market's forums and/or through email.

What are your favorite Market features on 1000Markets?
1000 Markets has a rotation system on the Market's homepage that is very fair to each merchant. Every time a customer clicks on our Market's homepage, a different shop is highlighted, along with a different assortment of products, which gives each of our merchants equal exposure.

Our Market has separate pages detailing our shops, products, blog, forums and policies where customers can get to know each of our merchants and what they have to offer.

We also are able to create categories for our products. Ours include “Art Forms”, “Clothing & Accessories”, “Garden Art”, “Home Décor”, “Jewelry”, “Paper Goods” and “Wood Art”.

How do you promote your Market?
We take every opportunity we can find to promote our Market. We post merchants interviews and biographies on our Market's blog, our personal blogs and the Athena Magazine weblog. We request and give features and interviews on shopping and eco-friendly websites and blogs. I'm in the process of working up a give-away promotional event for our Market. We also have a presence on Twitter and Facebook where we promote our shops and products.

Is your Market registered on Twitter, Plurk, or another networking website?

Yes, we have a Twitter account:  http://twitter.com/reclaimedtofame

and a Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=65364009303.

Does your Market have an exciting promotion, event or announcement to share?
I'm just in the process of putting together a promotional give-away event that I hope visitors to our Market will enjoy. Keep an eye on our blog for the announcement!

What is most rewarding about the Market?
I think the most rewarding part of our Market for our merchants, is being a part of a community of like-minded artisans who care about and support each other's work. For our customers, our Market offers some of the most unique and innovative products on 1000 Markets, items that you'll be hard pressed to find together like this anywhere else.

What advice would you offer to someone wanting to start their own Market?
The creators of 1000 Markets are truly the most helpful and friendly administrators I've ever come across and they'll help you make your vision become reality. You'll need a vision for the marketplace and a core group of at least 6-12 founding merchants. Once you have a shop set up, you'll have access to the merchants' main forums where you can start a thread in the "Discussions About Markets" area. That way you can see how much interest there would be in the market that you have in mind. Once you have your group of founding members together, contact 1000 Markets and present your idea to them.

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