Gumtree #UpcycleRevolution Challenge – Mad Women

As you all know I am 1 of 20 bloggers chosen to take part in #UpcycleRevolution with Gumtree as part of a big campaign running alongside National Recycle Week. Max McMurdo announced this week that thanks to Gumtree, a National Upcycle day has been created on 24th June! You can read my first blog here which introduces you to this exciting project : – Green is the new Black

Mad Women 

I have named my project ‘Mad Women’ for several reasons; one of which has connotations to the popular show ‘Mad Men’, set primarily in the 1960’s at an advertising agency in New York. A friend sparked the idea when she saw the mid century dresser I’d sourced on Gumtree, saying that it reminded her of the show! This seemed like fate as I work in advertising sales for Your Move Magazine, who are Liverpool’s leading property and lifestyle free pick up. I decided to use this as a theme and change the name to Mad Women in order to reference the show.  My up-cycled piece of furniture is dedicated to all the ‘Mad Women’ in Liverpool who take pride in their appearance and spend a fortune on their beauty regime! The ladies from Liverpool are known to rank high in the style and beauty stakes and I wanted to create a storage item for all the beauty essentials necessary to keep you looking glamorous. The dresser was purchased from a young couple in Salford who had originally bought it from an antiques shop. Unfortunately they had no space in their new apartment and wanted it to go to a loving home. It only cost me £30 – what a bargain! The rest of my £100 budget went on paint, wax, paintbrush, decoupage glue and gilding wax. I bought all of my bits from The Painted Chair in The Bluecoat, and Cass Art in Liverpool ONE. Jan from The Painted Chair was so helpful with all of her advice and tips! I spent so many lunch times going into that shop for ideas haha.  I used the Gumtree app on my i-phone to buy the dresser and it was really simple to use! My overall idea was to create something really eye catching with complimenting colours. I love colour so wanted to experiment and see what I could create by mixing my own purple paint and playing about with decoupage. I decided to decoupage the inside of the drawers with recycled women’s magazines; colour-coding each drawer with an ombre look to create more of a modern twist. The colours were chosen carefully using advert pages for beauty products, jewelry and fashion to create a surprise pop of colour and imagery when you open each drawer. Having never done anything like this before I was so nervous about how it would look in the end; I hope you all like the end result!!

Development

Finished Item

Tadaaaaa!

Hope you all like it! I will be travelling down to London tomorrow to take part in the event which will be judged by Max McMurdo – very exciting! Wish me luck 🙂 You can sponsor me here if you like as I am raising money alongside this challenge for The Alzheimers Society. Up to now I have raised £175!! Made up. Thank you everyone who has donated so far! Keep your eyes peeled on Gumtree as this baby will be up for sale after the event – all money going to charity too.

To find out more, visit http://www.gumtree.com/ and http://blog.gumtree.com/ and follow @Gumtree, #UpcycleRevolution.