Upcyclers Creativity Challenge: July Results

Copper Flower Earrings by The Salvaged Edge

We've been inspiring upcycling ideas through our team's monthly creativity challenge for over a year now! This month, Ada from Charoite Wind, selected the upcycled medium... flowers! The task was to simply upcycle something into a flower, or incorporate flowers into your upcycled design. This medium offered some amazing entries!  You can see all of them on our special Pinterest Board!

July results from the talented Ada are in....


As many of you have already vocalized, this month's challenge was really hard to choose first and second place winners. As Bee wrote at the beginning of the challenge, "We are all winners in this challenge!" and I hope each and everyone of you will believe that to the core. Each and everyone of you has put in so much work, and time into this challenge. It really showed through all the entries. 

Before I announce the first and second place winners (that will have a mini ad on the FRONT PAGE OF THE TEAM'S BLOG for one month following the challenge), I wanted to mention that I am very proud of each one of you. It is an honor to be working along side such talented, passionate and dedicated artisans. As mentioned earlier, choosing only two winners was mind bottling. So I implemented a 15 point system. The first 5 points are based on if the item 'used floral materials or already made flowers'. Making additional flowers was an additional optional, however the actual challenge was to upcycle ready made materials. The next five points were based on the presentation of the item. Anything from photography elements and principles (shape, form, point of view, focus, etc) to item description was considered. Lastly the remaining five points were based on overall store appearance. Questions I had to ask while flipping from on shop to the next was, "is this visually pleasing?", "is there a cohesive theme?", "does it make me want to purchase or favorite everything?". The two challenge winners are not only showing their product, but the face of their company. I had to make sure not to be bias, fair and through. Some entries tied in points so I really had to explore the tie breakers and deal breakers. 

The winners of the July Challenge 2013 on the Upcyclers Team are 'itzaChicThing' for second place, and 'itsyourcountryspirit' for first place! 

I love itzaChicThing's overall store appearance, I wanted to buy everything from the store, and she used similar techniques throughout her boutique. What really caught my eye was the vintage crochet flowers and intricate stitching. Very professional. Great job! 

I really enjoyed itsyourcountryspirit item photography. What's clever is the item is almost the same from every angle, but they still took shots from every angle to really convince the customer! I would infidelity purchase a lot of items as well and the company had a great face. And of course the item was originally made from floral fabric! 

Thank you everyone for entering the challenge, it was a pleasure being on the judging panel this month!
~Ada
Charoite Wind