My kids love to craft and fortunately, I’ve amassed quite the collection of odds and ends through teaching and from my days working in daycare centres. But nothing compares to the incredible selection and excitement of Urban Source. If you’re looking for a unique and imaginative shopping destination that will provide your kids with hours of creativity back at home, make sure you visit this Vancouver gem.
Since 1996, Urban Source has been a beloved community staple in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood. This quirky, one-of-a-kind store is a treasure trove for upcycled items and a dream for creative minds and artists alike. The store’s concept is simple, yet brilliant: they repurpose overstock, donated craft supplies, and industrial cutoffs to provide customers with a unique shopping experience that changes each time you visit. Big and small bins line the walls with everything from buttons to used toy parts, film, balloons, crayons, beads, scrap paper, and old magazines perfect for collages or other creative pursuits. At Urban Source, you can choose your own adventure. Option one is to purchase specific items or craft kits to take home. There are individual products available for purchase, or you can shop the big bins and pay the price listed on each bin. This is great if you just need a few specific things to complete a project, or if you’re interested in a more guided crafting experience (like decorating a fairy house).
Bins at Urban Source. Image from www.urbansource.ca
Option two is by far my favourite, because it gets kids involved in the selection process and also makes the shopping experience more of an event. Urban Source offers three different sizes of brown paper bags that visitors can fill up with items from the big bin. The prices are affordable– especially when you consider how many items each bag can hold! We selected a small bag ($8.94) for each kid to fill up and then they went to town looking through all the cool craft supplies. Medium bags are $13.30 and large are $24.10, which would be good if you needed a large supply of items, of if you wanted to restock a classroom craft supply. Some bins will only allow you to select a certain number of items, while others have no restrictions at all. In total, I think we spent 30 minutes filling up the bags, but we could have spent longer looking around the rest of the store!
Urban Source is also committed to sustainability by repurposing materials that might otherwise end up in the landfill. This eco-conscious philosophy is woven into the fabric of the store, making it a great place to introduce kids to the concept of upcycling and the importance of environmental stewardship. My kids especially loved seeing some of the beautiful upcycled projects that lined the windows and walls of the store. It inspired them to expand their thoughts of what could be possible when individual items were combined with purpose and creativity.
Coming home from Urban Source, my kids were thrilled to dump out their new treasures and create. Was it messy? Yes. But they also spent 3 hours sitting at the table crafting, which is pretty amazing for a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old! In the end, they made some wands, a stick puppet, and a few pictures out of their upcycled items, and we still have a box of extra supplies ready to go for the next time inspiration strikes.
If you have leftover supplies and odds and ends you don’t know what to do with, Urban Source also accepts donations so you can make space for new creations. It’s a place where creativity knows no bounds and all ages will be inspired to create.
Urban Source:
When: Daily
Time: 10:30am-5:30pm (Monday-Saturday), 11am-5pm (Sunday)
Address: 3126 Main Street, Vancouver
Website: urbansource.ca
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