This Pay-What-You-Want Texas Art Store Lets You Fill a Bag and Name Your Price

The first craft supply I ever hoarded was a coffee can full of buttons. My grandmother kept it on a shelf in her sewing room. On rainy afternoons she would tip the whole thing out onto the table and let me sort them by color while she hemmed a skirt.

I did not know the word “sustainability” then. I just knew that nothing good ever got thrown away in her house.

I thought about that button can the whole time I was wandering the aisles of a little shop in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, a place built on joyful thrift. It is called Pegasus Creative Reuse.

It runs on a simple, almost radical idea. You fill a bag with donated art supplies, and then you decide what to pay for it.

Below, I will walk you through what it feels like to shop a store with no price tags, how a pay-what-you-want art haven came to be, and why a growing crowd of Dallas makers keeps coming back with empty tote bags and big plans.

A Treasure Trove With No Price Tags

Walking through the door feels like being handed the keys to somebody’s very organized, very generous imagination. Bolts of fabric in every color and texture lean against the walls. Rolls of butcher paper stand like tree trunks. Yarn, vinyl, paint, and stacks of cardstock fill the shelves.

Then you notice the small stuff, which is where the magic hides. Antique drawers overflow with bells and glitter. Bulletin boards hold scrapbooking odds and ends. There are beads, brushes, rubber stamps, stencils, needlepoint patterns, and vintage stamps waiting for someone to know exactly what to do with them.

You might find a stack of pristine sketchbooks. You might find Cricut vinyl, a roll of canvas, or a set of Legos that some kid outgrew. The inventory changes constantly, because it is all donated, so no two visits are ever quite the same.

That is the part that keeps people coming back. A shelf that held rubber stamps last week might hold embroidery hoops this week. You learn to shop with an open mind, and the store rewards you for it.

I watched a woman across the aisle find a drawer of half-used oil paints and actually gasp. She held a tube up to the light like she had struck gold. In a way, she had.

Here is the part that makes first-timers laugh out loud. You grab a bag, you explore, you fill it with whatever sparks an idea, and then you carry it to the counter and name your own price. There is no register scan, no total flashing back at you.

How Paying What You Want Actually Works

If the idea of setting your own price makes you a little nervous, you are not alone. Most of us are so used to price tags that a shop without them feels like a puzzle. The staff make it easy.

You fill your bag, you bring it up front, and you pay what feels fair to you. If you would rather have a number to work from, they offer suggested pricing to guide you. But the concept truly is what it says on the sign.

Before the pay-what-you-want switch, most items sold for around seven dollars. That was already less than half of what the same thing would cost new at a big box store.

The point was never to make a fortune. It was to get supplies into the hands of people who will use them.

Did you know the model works both ways? You can donate your own pre-loved art supplies for store credit. That leftover yarn, those half-used paints, the beads you swore you would turn into something: bring them in, and they become someone else’s beginning.

For a big drop-off, you can schedule a time. For a small one, you can just bring it by during store hours. Either way, your clutter skips the landfill and lands on a shelf where it will be loved.

The Couple Who Turned a Road Trip Into a Shop

Every good store has an origin story, and this one starts in a car. Dorothy Villarreal and Ernie Diaz, both tech professionals with a serious creative streak, were driving back to Dallas from Shreveport, Louisiana, when they decided to stop dreaming about a reuse shop and actually open one.

They grew up in immigrant families where reduce, reuse, and recycle were not a slogan but a way of life. Villarreal has said that growing up around family craft traditions made the philosophy feel natural.

“The idea of reduce, reuse, recycle is just very natural to us,” she told a local reporter.

In the three months after that drive, they moved fast. They secured a storefront, they came up with the name, and they started collecting donations from the community. Pegasus Creative Reuse opened its doors in Tyler Station in August 2023.

The founders once compared themselves to Andy surrounded by his toys in “Toy Story,” and honestly, that is the energy. This was two people who loved stuff that still had life left in it, building a home for all of it.

Their early impact was real and measurable. In its first stretch, the shop diverted more than 500 pounds of art supplies away from the landfill, one donated bin of glitter and fabric at a time.

A New Owner, Same Big Heart

Stories like this often end when the founders move on. This one just turned a page. In 2025, Dorothy and Ernie relocated to be closer to family in Mexico, and rather than shutter the shop, they handed it to a friend who believed in it: Aimé Nuñez.

Aimé is the one who brought in the pay-what-you-want pricing, a move designed to make the store more accessible than it had ever been. She has kept the mission steady while stretching its reach with new ideas and events.

What I love about the handoff is how gentle it was. A dream did not get sold to the highest bidder. It got passed to someone who would protect the whole reason it existed in the first place.

More Than a Store, It Is a Studio

Come for the supplies, stay for the machines. Pegasus is not just a place to buy materials, it is a place to make things right there. The shop offers rental stations for gear most of us would never buy for a single project.

You can book time on a 3-D printer, a Cricut cutting machine, or an AccuCut die-cutter. If you have ever wanted to test out a fancy crafting tool before committing to the price, this is your low-stakes chance.

The community side runs just as deep. The shop hosts hands-on workshops, collaborative art nights, sustainability fairs, pop-ups, and special events throughout the year.

It has drawn interest from local institutions, including students from Booker T. Washington High School for the Visual and Performing Arts and members of The Oak Cliff Ladies Club looking for a place to gather and make.

Pro tip: follow the shop online before you plan a visit. The workshop calendar and the pop-up schedule shift often, and the best events fill up with the kind of people who show up with their own ideas already brewing.

Room for Every Kind of Maker

The best thing about a store like this is who it lets in. Art supplies are not cheap, and that price tag quietly keeps a lot of people from ever starting. Here, that barrier just is not there.

A schoolteacher can stock a whole classroom for the cost of a nice lunch. A retiree picking up watercolor for the first time can experiment without guilt over wasted paint. A kid can chase a wild idea without a parent bracing for the receipt.

I keep thinking about how many first projects have started on these shelves. The beginner who was scared to spend fifty dollars on brushes she might not use. The tinkerer who needed one weird part and found a drawer full of them.

When you take the fear of the price out of art, more people make art. That is the quiet genius of the whole place, and you can feel it the moment you walk in.

The Neighborhood Around It

Half the fun is where the shop lives. Tyler Station is a converted historic rail depot in the Oak Cliff neighborhood, a red-brick complex that now houses a warm mix of small makers, roasters, and independent businesses.

It is the perfect backdrop for a store built on second chances. Old bones, new purpose, and a whole lot of creative energy under one roof. You can make a whole afternoon of it, wandering the complex before or after you fill your bag.

Oak Cliff itself has long been the beating creative heart of southern Dallas, full of murals, coffee shops, and independent spirit. A shop that hands art supplies to anyone who wants them fits right into that story.

Why It Feels So Good to Shop Here

There is a particular happiness in rescuing something. When you carry out a bag of canvas rolls and half-finished bead kits, you are not just saving money, though you are certainly doing that. You are keeping perfectly good material out of a dumpster.

You are also stepping into a chain of generosity. Someone donated these supplies. The shop sorted and shelved them. Now they are yours.

The small price you pay helps keep the doors open for the next maker who walks in with an empty bag and a spark of an idea.

Whether you are a teacher stretching a classroom budget, a kid starting your first big project, or a lifelong crafter who simply cannot resist a good bin of buttons, there is room for you here. That, more than anything, is the point.

How to Get There

Where: Pegasus Creative Reuse, 1300 S Polk St, Suite 274, Dallas, TX 75208, inside the Tyler Station complex in Oak Cliff.

The shop is generally open Wednesday through Sunday and closed Monday and Tuesday, but hours shift with the season and with special events, so check the website at pegasusreuse.com before you drive out. It is worth the trip to get it right.

Parking is available around the Tyler Station complex, and the neighborhood rewards a little lingering, so give yourself more time than you think you need.

Grab a Bag and Go Make Something

Some of the best places in Texas are the ones that trust you. This little shop hands you an empty bag, points you at a room full of donated wonders, and lets you decide what it is all worth. It is thrifting and art class rolled into one afternoon.

So clear a shelf in your craft closet, round up the supplies you never used, and plan your trip to Oak Cliff. Fill your bag, name your price, and drive home with a trunk full of possibility. Your next project is already waiting on those shelves.

Featured image: @ Pegasus Creative Reuse