Can one visionary artist turn four sheets of plain, white cardstock into a $22 million dollar Creative Arts Retreat and Rehabilitation Center?
A Documentary in the Making
In a world that runs on gold, bills, and cryptocurrencies, the idea of creativity acting as currency seems outrageous. But award-winning international speaker, author, and creative strategy consultant, Brandy M. Miller, isn’t afraid to ask audacious questions and pursue the outrageous possibilities.
So she took the true story of Kyle MacDonald’s legendary trading of one red paperclip for a house, done in 2005, and asked herself an important question: Could she use this same process to acquire everything she needed to build a $22 million dollar Creative Arts Retreat & Rehabilitation Center – on trades alone?
Trading Up is her video documentation of all the steps she’s taking on the road to answering that question.
Unlocking Creative Potential
Too many creatives get deadlocked in the pursuit of their dreams by a lack of funding. Projects stall out and dreams die. Trading Up strives to prove a point: Money isn’t the only – or even the best – tool available to help achieve a dream.
Leveraging the Power of Connections
Brandy believes that too many people undervalue the power of connections. As she puts it:
“There are over eight billion people on the planet. Connect to the right person, show them how helping you build your dream helps them build theirs, and you won’t have to pay money to get what you need. They’ll happily give it to you because they know that what they’ll receive in return is worth the sacrifice.”
And that’s exactly what she’s aiming to demonstrate.
Birth of a Vision
Until 2019, Brandy’d never even thought it was possible to live without money. It seemed a foreign concept to her – an impossible dream.
Over the next six years, God began working to unravel her skepticism and show her the possibilities. But that didn’t mean she didn’t struggle to comprehend what He was teaching her.
It wasn’t until September 25th, 2025 that she realized she’d been allowing her money to dictate the birth – or death – of her retreat center dreams. Dreams she’d held since 2014. Motivated by the insight, she decided to take immediate action.
The retreat center was no longer just about helping creatives get their stories out into the world. It was about removing the barriers that kept them from becoming all they were capable of being by teaching them to leverage their creativity in new ways.
Creating a documentary of the process she could use – trading to get the retreat center – would not only serve to prove to every creative that they could leverage their creativity to achieve any dream they desired, it would also prove that creativity could act as a powerful currency, too.
So she put her plan into action, one step at a time.
Step 1: Use Creativity to Add Value to the Card Stock
She took the plain, white cardstock, markers, and tape to create a tiny house model which made the cardstock a work of art. That was where her trade would begin, along with:
- an opportunity to be part of the documentary
- a chapter in the book
Step 2: Turn the Model into a Pattern
She disassembled the house model, scanned it into her system, and digitized the work, making a pattern of it that she could use for future projects.
Step 3: Make the Pattern a Cut-And-Sew Project Available on Spoonflower
She positioned the digital pattern into a design for upload to Spoonflower so that people could access it and purchase it either as fabric or as wallpaper. Now those 4 sheets of plain, white cardstock could become the cornerstone of something that offered real return-on-investment to anyone who traded with her.
Step 4: Develop the Creative Business in a Box Concept
Her work on this project led her to develop the Creative Business in a Box concept – something that made it worth much bigger and more valuable trades than the cut-and-sew pattern alone.
Each tiny house she created for the trade would become a to-scale version of a house that would eventually appear in the retreat center (modified so that the original belongs to the trader).
Step 5: Begin Seeking Trades
Trade 1: The Roman Villa
She reached out to her younger sister, a fellow creative whose eye for design made beautiful interiors, and arranged a trade – one Creative Business in a Box featuring a Roman Villa style tote pattern and 5 fabric designs for 20 custom designs. Those designs she could use to expand her catalog of offerings.
Trade 2: The Mad Hatter
She offered the next trade to a YouTube drummer who asked for a Mad Hatter style tote in exchange for custom drum tracks. Those tracks she could leverage to create custom music.
Trade 3: The Beach Bungalo
She offered the third trade to another friend who collects shark’s teeth. A whole box of shark’s teeth to use in art projects in exchange for a Beach Bungalo style tote bag.
Trade 4: The Dancer’s Studio
She offered a 4th trade for PR services to another friend who also happens to be a dancer.
Will You Be the Next Trade?
Brandy’s still looking for trades to make to get to the dream of her retreat center. Want to be next? Post a YouTube video with your offer and tag her @CreatingWithLove YouTube Channel. Let her know what you’ve got to offer and how you see it helping build the retreat center.