Friday 27 April 2007

Recycled treasure






Wednesday was a public holiday so I decided to take Thursday and Friday off, to give me a five day break including the weekend.What a great day I had yesterday, the weather was its usual, lovely and sunny. I decided to do the art shop tour. I visited the bead, art materials, paper and craft stores in Prahran, I also visited Zart Art a fairly large art store in Box Hill that sells art materials to schools, but also to the public and online. I was able to pick up rubber blocks for carving stamps. It's a fabulous store with very helpful staff. If you visit their website they have a free online 'zine' in pdf format called Zart Extra, it shows artwork from schools and has some great ideas, it's terrific to see what creative work is coming out of some of our schools.

The highlight was a visit to the 'Recycled Art Truck' in Ringwood. It's not actually a truck, but a large shed, where lots of the cast offs and scraps from products manufactured in Melbourne are sorted and sold on. The deal is you pay twenty five dollars for a garbage bag and you fill it with whatever takes your fancy. The photos above show my goodies. They have fabric scraps, foam blocks, cardboard, plastic, papers, timber, metal mesh, ribbon, some nice old metal spools, bottles, I even picked up a new picture frame for my grandson's latest painting. It's junk collectors heaven. I loved all the little carboard circles of varying sizes, they will end up painted and used in my jewellery. The fabric will be used in my books and the vast array of circle 'templates' will make great stencils for artwork. My main problem now is finding a home for it all.

14 comments:

Holly Loves Art said...

Oooh... looks like a lot of treasure to me! Thank you for visiting my blog... I love your work below very much. The jewelry is gorgeous and your altered books are really cool.

Marie said...

Ha - what a surprise to be greeted by a large garbage bag here!!!! What a fab collection of stuff tho - I'm sure you'll put it all to good use too!

Jo Wholohan said...

oooOOOOO thats the stuff Ro!!! I ssoooo wanna go there when im down LOL Why does it have to be a year away LOL

Linda O'Neill said...

Sounds like you've been having fun! You got some real treasures in that garbage bag...can't wait to see what you come up with using it all.

Have a nice weekend, Ro.:)xo

Sharon Tomlinson said...

Oh my goodness, what a haul. I can't wait to see what you do with some of this. And yes where to put it? Just use is up real quick and then you can go for more.

Karen Cole said...

Wow......

"So why can't I have an art truck?", she whined.

katie said...

what a wonderful way to start a nice long break - it looks like you had some major fun here :-)
i wish i could explore your fun aussie art spots in person - that garbage bag of stuff is fascinating and i look forward to seeing some of the pieces in your artwork. have a great vacation!

Judy said...

Looks like some great finds Ro! You clever little thing you. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Kristen Robinson said...

I do belive you have hours and hours of fun ahead of you! Cannot wait to see what wonders you create!

XO
Kristen

Susan Tuttle said...

Now those are some incredible finds!! You struck gold!! I am looking forward to seeing what you create with them Ro!

Susan
xo

Anonymous said...

What a great haul. Now I really want to come over and play! Ux

Dot said...

What a great stash Ro! I am sure you will put all of this stuff to good use. $25 for a garbag full of goodies is such a bargain.

I remember visiting Zart Art when I lived in the Eastern suburbs. Must pay it a visit again.

Mmmm....when I lived in Prahran I used to visit a paper shop there (DragonPapers?) and a shop called Handworks (which I loved). It is always good to revisit these places and find different things.

Look forward to seeing what you do with some of your purchases!

Crafty Green Poet said...

That's like the Scrap Stores over here. Great idea! I use a lot of recycled materials in my art and crafts.

Rowan said...

I love these recycling places!! We have one in WA now called ReMIDa. Very cool. My mum and I went today and came home with 6 bags of stuff, Frame moulding, 4 big thick cardboard tubes and 3 metres long!!! I am going to be making totem poles!!

i love your papers form a later post. Beautiful!