Gumtree Upcycle Revolution Challenge

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This month I will be taking part in the Gumtree Upcycle Revolution Challenge. I love a bit of upcycling so I’m really excited about taking part.

The Challenge

Buy something from Gumtree, Upcycle it and then sell it!

There are 3 challenges to choose from based on your interests. On the 16th June, there is an event in London hosted by Max McMurdo where everyone that has taken part can showcase their items. Max will be selecting his winner and they will be awarded £500 to give to a charity of their choice.

After the event, the participants are able to take their items home and sell them with any money made again donated to charity.

The 3 Challenges

Challenge 1: Create a piece of living room furniture or a functional storage item.

Challenge 2: Create a storage item for jewellery, make-up or accessories for the bedroom.

Challenge 3: Create a storage item or functional item for the garden.

After reading the brief I knew straight away which category I would choose and what I wanted to create, it was then just a case of finding something suitable on Gumtree.

I downloaded the Gumtree app and set about searching for an appropriate item. I instantly came across quite a few so I emailed the best-suited piece and awaited the seller’s response.

A few days later and I still hadn’t heard anything back so I looked again and contacted another seller. No response! By this point, I was starting to panic that I wouldn’t find an item to upcycle in time for the event in London.

I had a few saved searches on Gumtree as back up items so I went back through them and found something which wasn’t exactly what I wanted but would do for the purposes of what I wanted to create.

I emailed this seller and waited, nervously, for a response. Hooray! She emailed back within a few hours. I arranged by email with her to pick up the items over the weekend. On Sunday I drove over to her house paid her the money and took my items home.

After an initial slow start, I had success. I found the site really easy to use and will definitely be using it again in the future. It does make me wonder though why people would put items on to a selling site such as Gumtree and then not be productive in selling them! If the item has sold surely they should just take them off the site or marked as sold?

Anyway, I digress.

Here is what I bought…