Upcyclers Creativity Challenge: October Results

October's challenge was full of fun!  Stephanie from OurChildrensEarth challenged us to upcycle broken or unwanted Halloween decorations for this month Upcyclers Creativity Challenge!

All entries can be found on our Pinterest board, HERE!

Here's what this month's judge had to say...

First Place Winner: Alison from Pru Pru

This is an amazing way to recycle old wax from Halloween that most people would throw away. I have never seen this done before. What an original, creative and super cute way to make our world a better place.  You can view Alison's excellent blog post HERE!

Second Place Winner: MaryJeansThings

What a great way to use old Halloween catalogs. Most people will throw these away after the season but I love that they were saved and recycled for the next year. These are beautiful and colorful. What a fun idea to use for parties or family get togethers.


Thanks, Stephanie
Our Childrens Earth

Creativity Challenge: Vintage Cutter Textiles

In September, Upcyclers were getting creative with our team's monthly creativity challenge! Our judge Patrice from ITSYOURCOUNTRY selected the upcycled medium: vintage cutter textiles...and we had some amazing entries!

See ALL of the upcycled entries on our special Pinterest board and see who won below!!! Patrice gives us a beauitful explanation of her medium selection and a detailed account of the winning entries!

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"The medium I selected for the September Teamupcyclers creativity challenge is vintage cutter textiles.

My love for textiles and preserving even the smallest pieces of worn tattered holey vintage hankies, table linens, dresser scarves patchwork quilts, etc. that would get thrown out, tossed aside or used as moving blankets, is why I selected this medium for the September creativity challenge. I find I cannot even part with or throw out the smallest of damaged cutter pieces. They need to find a place in a creation for the future to enjoy. I love working with this medium and challenged the team to see what fun and creative ideas they could come up with.

The medium of vintage cutter textiles, which means vintage linens which includes embroidered dresser scarves, hankies, vintage tablecloths, napkins, quilts, doilies, feedsacks, vintage sheets, orphan quilt blocks and the like.

Definition of "Cutter"; Cutter meaning that the item is no longer useable for its original intended purpose, as it has holes, tears, spots, stains and is damaged in some way, but still has areas that are useable and can be "cut up" and reused in a new way.

There are so many vintage textiles out there, that have been used so lovingly over time for their intended use and eventually they get stains or holes and the fabric may start to get weak and tear, but still so much of the beautiful handiwork of embroidery, cutwork, patchwork, quilting, lace, crochet edging and fabric itself is still a piece of the past that still can be cherished and saved into the future and recycled, upcycled and created into something new and wonderful.

I absolutely loved looking at each and every entry and so much time, talent and thought has gone into each and every one. Thank you everyone, for using these beautiful pieces of the past to give them new life. A piece of the past will live on!

The winner is SwooshbyScrollwork’s Layer Cake Skirt

I selected this skirt because of the multiple selections of vintage cutter textiles to create this fun flirty slip skirt, using vintage table linen lace, pillowcase edging and curtain edging

Well thought out creation and .beautifully put together.

Runner Up is RekindledPleasures’s Crossbody Pillowcase Purse

I selected this purse because of the unique utilization of a vintage pillowcase into a sweet feminine purse and is all created from a pillowcase; the inside lining to the charming embroidered flowers and hand crocheted edging on the outside from a vintage pillowcase. So shabby and sweet!"

Great job everyone : )

ITS YOUR COUNTRY

~Patrice

Upcyclers Creativity Challenge: August results

Each month here at Upcyclers we ask one shop to host an Upcyclers Creativity Challenge! For August, our lovely Tricia from Upcycled Stuff encouraged us to upcycle by selecting the medium... old utensils! For inspiration she even created her own Pinterest board full of ideas for the challenge!!!

Here are the results...

I have to say that I was a little nervous when I announced my pick for the August Upcyclers challenge. But, what a fabulous collection of projects we had! Picking a winner is not fun, everyone submitted fabulous entries this month. But since I had to...

 

Kayla from Love Letters Upcycled wowed me with her silverware lamp! Such a creative use of all the different parts and what a fabulous shadow it casts when on in the evening.

I love this key holder by Ganev at ReTain ReMake ReNew. It's wonderfully different from all the other key holders from silverware that I've seen. And being the animal lover that I am, I just couldn't resist!

Thanks, Tricia
Upcycled Stuff


All of August's entries can be viewed on our team's special Pinterest Challenge Board! And team members be sure to check the discussion boards on Etsy! September's challenge is under way!

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

Upcyclers June Creativity Challenge Results: broken jewelry

Each month Upcyclers puts together an upcycled creativity challenge! For June, Marcy from Rinnovato Vintage, hosted the challenge by selecting the upcycled medium... old broken jewelry! She referenced some beautiful pieces of her own, including the above upcycled vase.  This specific medium generated some fantastic ideas! All upcycled entries can be found on our special Pinterest board! Marcy had this to say about her winning selections...


I loved the diversity of the entries for this month's challenge to use old, broken or mismatched jewelry to make a new, repurposed item. We had upcycled necklaces and cuff bracelets, a decorative picture frame, a child's jacket, a woven bowl, a hair barrette, a jewelry box and a hand crocheted collar.

While I had many favorites, I had to give 1st place to Diane of ClassicRetro for her beautiful pink floral fabric necklace. She not only made use of vintage jewelry pieces, but she also utilized many other upcycled materials in her lovely creation. 

Pink Floral Fabric Necklace by ClassicRetro

2nd place went to Jane of Jane Koopman for her pretty refurbished jewelry box. She also wrote a great blog about the challenge and the idea for her project, along with photos of her work in progress.
Her wonderful final product can be seen here.

 Thanks to all for your enthusiastic responses and creative entries! I look forward to next month's challenge! - Marcy

Be sure to check out July's Creativity Challenge that is going on now!!!

Upcyclers Creativity Challenge: May Results

Each month our team puts together an Upcycled Creativity Challenge! For May, Patricia from Patricia L. Johnson Glass Art, hosted the challenge by selecting the upcycled medium, plastic coffee cans.  This specific medium generated some fantastic ideas!  All entries can be viewed on our Creativity Challenge Pinterest Board!  Patricia had this to share about her winning selections...

"Though the entries were few, they were some really good ones and I had a bit of a hard time deciding.

The runner up is Our Childrens Earth with her storage containers. It is such a great practical item. It is a simple project to make and It uses all recycled items. It is also a great way to use up all those scraps.




The grand prize goes to SwooshbyScrollwork for her incredibly adorable Hobbit House. The piece is so creative. I absolutely love her use of very different items …like kitchen scraps. Just amazing!

Thanks to all who participated! This was great fun and some really great entries!"

~ Patricia L. Johnson Glass Art

Upcyclers Creativity Challenge: April Results

Each month, Team Upcyclers offers a Creativity Challenge to our team members.  Sarah from SweetSomeday was April's judge!  Judges are responsible for selecting an upcycled medium and picking the winning entries!  First and second place receive a month long ad on the front page of our blog.

Here's what Sarah had to say...

The medium I picked for this month is one that was easy to find: a cardboard toilet paper tube! I told the team members that I would also accept paper towel tubes, wrapping paper tubes, and really any type of cardboard tube! The fun started with ideas of cardboard tubes to use that I didn’t even think of – the inside roll of lint rollers, packing tape, and ribbon! The possibilities were endless!

Picking two winners was almost impossible because there was such a wide range of submissions, using the tubes for organization, projects with kids, jewelry, and more! It’s amazing what can be done with just a little bit of cardboard, that I would normally toss into the recycle bin. So anyway, I had to pick a winner! I truly wish I could pick every project, but I decided to go with the ones that I actually pictured myself owning and using regularly:

1st place is this precious little notebook made by Joanna from PippinRunWild. 

I could just picture myself keeping it in my purse for jotting down notes and lists!

2nd place is this lovely tree ornament made by Alison from prupru. I could see this ornament hanging on a plant or in a window year-round!

And as a bonus – both of the winners included tutorials for their projects! So you can make one (or more) of your own if you’d like!

Cardboard Tube Notebook Tutorial

Toilet Paper Roll Ornament

Please check out all of the entries! It was so much fun to see everyone’s responses to this challenge!

Thanks, Sarah
Sweet Someday

Creativity Challenge: Upcycle Neckties

Our March creativity challenge was hosted by Endure Upcycled Designs, who asked participants to upcycled neckties for last month's challenge.  We had all sorts of awesome entries, all of which can be viewed on our contest's Pinterest board!

I love how Endure Upcycled Designs gave examples to encourage creativity.

Upcycled Wedding Garter, "Something Blue"

March's winners have been featured on the front page of our site all month long! Endure Upcycled Designs selected these winners:

First Place

Business Suit Tie Purse by Koop Designs

Second Place

Mermaid Necklace by Swoosh by Scrollwork

April's Upcyclers challenge has just a few days left to enter. Check out the team's discussion boards for details. SweetSomeday selected toliet paper rolls for this clever challenge!

Thanks, Bee

The Wooden Bee