It's kind of hard for me to take this questions seriously, because I feel like responding, "Where *don't* you find materials???" and leave it at that.

I think it depends on where your vision for collage and assemblage and related arts is focused: The late husband of a friend of mine seemed to work mainly in reclaimed items, for example. Other people, it appears, focus more squarely on clean new papers marketed for scrapbookers. Some people work mainly in paper that's been made by hand, and part of their art includes making the paper. What one intends to make determines what catches one's attention... but then serendipity takes over, it seems to me, and what one finds feeds one's imagination.

Looking around the room (my paper is *everywhere*), I see such scores as these:

--the shiny gold wrapper from a chocolate bar
--the remains of a pinata
--a ream of dusty-rose-colored printer paper
--Christmas-season ads from local upscale department stores
--a copy of InStyle magazine I lifted from a waiting room at the hospital where I was waiting for a test
--Christmas cards from last year
--tattered shreds of discarded coin-collectors' coin books that I tore apart
--the corrugated box from a package of light bulbs

I would say that your suggestions are just the beginning.

The debris of everyday life is a huge source for me. I pick up 'pretty' scraps of paper as I find them: coat check stubs, dry clearners tags, subway and train tickets, flyers thrust into my hand on the street. Discarded blueprints from my architect neighbor, and my own junk mail.

These are a few of my favorite things...

I am diabetic (ironic, since I just said that I collect chocolate wrappers) and have begun looking at *everything* connected with my life as a diabetic person as raw material for a project: insulin packages, caps from syringes, wrappers from test-strips, coupons for sugarless energy-drinks, tissues that I use to blot blood after finger-sticks... (Treating diabetes is not for the faint of heart. There are way earthier reminders than spots of blood that we are, in the end, animal creatures whose bodies are vulnerable to death and decay.)

Since a lot of the artifacts of the life of an insulin-dependent person are three dimensional, it appears as though an assemblage is assembling itself.

I use mostly magazine cutouts and left over dimensional objects from other projects. One time I couldn't find any orange paint, so I dragged out some playboy and maxim magazines and cut out background colors. I was looking for a flame effect, red to pale yellow. You can judge for yourself in my profile it's the hot seat, with a cat sitting on it. to me it looks like paint. my best score lately has been christmas tags my mother found in a drawer. they're german metallic tags and sell for a lot on e-bay. i want the insides of lighters, the striker parts, clockworks, doll parts, keyboard parts--can't find any of those lately.

I haven't heard anyone say "FLEA MARKET", yet. I have a favorite vendor at the flea mkt who bids on storage units, then sells the contents on the weekends. I often find old scrapbooks/photo albums, old office stationary or supplies (like bottles of ink or weird metal binding bits), mismatched everything, containers, glassware, etc... This guy loves me because I buy "the crap" no one else wants or even knows what it is. I have recently acquired space ... OMGiggles! I have 600 sq ft to myself and all my collected "stuff" has a home to spread out, get used and be appreciated. I LOVE IT.

Did no one mention paper bags from the grocery store, either? I love the way brown paper bags take acrylic paint. They are sturdy & make great additions to altered books, as fold outs or new pages. I save them in all sizes and densities.

Recycle * Reuse * Repurpose

i like to use the old magazines, catalogues, leaflets and pamphlets, etc, from my work, and when i lived in the San Fran Bay area, i would raid their magazine recycling bins... and theres all that lovely free reading material everywhere! for lettering, etc...