In a bid to get myself organised for some school holiday creativity, I went on an adventure last week to check out Reverse Art Truck. Much to my 3 year old’s brief dismay, our drive through the back streets of Ringwood landed us at a large tin shed and not actually a truck. Boy, this place was amazing though. For $30 you can fill a huge garbage bag to the brim of factory off-cuts and seconds (think barrels of containers, pump packs, fabric, fake turf, timber, you name it!). Apparently kinders and other community groups stock their centres from this place. My husband even recalls nailing through a similar vinyl flooring off-cut at kinder, which as odd as it sounds is entirely plausible as the Reverse Art Truck has been around for 42 years.
The lovely lady who guided us through the process explained that Reverse Art Truck is a not-for-profit organisation who collect these factory rejects which would otherwise be destined for land-fill.
The shed is broken up into aisles of larger stock (like containers, spools, timber, fabric and carpet off-cuts) of which you can load up to your heart’s content. There’s also a section of smaller items including buttons, stickers, ribbon, paper, boxes, wallpaper cut-offs etc., which you need to take more sparingly so there’s enough to go around.
The three year old loved just walking along and throwing things into the bag explaining how she would re-purpose the items into some sort of elaborate car and race track situation. Getting the bag home and hearing it emptied out onto the floorboards was akin to that oh-too-familiar cringe-worthy sound of an entire tub of Lego being tipped out. Having said that, the hours of entertainment of just sorting through buttons, furry fabric, old door mat pieces and wooden cones has been well worth the mess!
So if you’re after some crafty materials and don’t want to re-mortgage the house for a trip to Spotlight, get yourself out to Reverse Art Truck. The place is cash-only so take your $30, your GPS and your imagination and you’re on you’re way to some messy creative awesomeness! You’ll find them at 17 Greenwood Avenue, Ringwood and here is their facebook page.
