Welcome to Upcycled You

Get to know the people behind Upcycled You. How we started, why and where we hope to go.

Welcome to our first blog post!

Upcycled You originally began as an Instagram page to inspire others to use creativity as an alternative to fast fashion, but with a global pandemic and endless amounts of time on our hands, we decided to try branching out by creating a website! Our blog co-exists with the content posted on our Instagram page, and is meant to be the insider’s scoop on what’s behind our upcycles, collaborations, features and what’s in our brains when creating our posts. With the limited caption space and attention spans of people on Instagram, we hope that this blog will help others better understand our purpose and find more depth in what we do.

The Beginning

Upcycled You started as an on the spot, panicked final project for our world perspectives class. Even though it’s now an enjoyable hobby of ours, it definitely didn’t start that way. In January 2020, our teacher told us we had two weeks to make some sort of social and environmental impact, so we began an Instagram page for Upcycled You. One week into building our platform, we were shocked when our teacher told us that if we didn’t reach 1000 followers by the end of the two weeks, we’d receive a C. After running around the hallways and begging people to follow us, we only made it to 200 by presentation time. We were scared for what ensued, even though we ended up receiving an A! Fast-forward seven months later and we’re still working on Upcycled You’s Instagram page, and just recently decided to branch out into other social media platforms, including Pinterest, TikTok and our blog.

Upcycled tank top repurposed from the neck of a sweater

Let's Introduce Ourselves!

Upcycled You is a collaborative project. We both do our part to help it run smoothly and continue to create interesting content for you. Olivia interacts with creators who upcycle, repurpose, or create sustainable and ethical content. She’s quite accommodating for collaborations too, and has in the past invited us into her home to communicate with a company in the U.S. Mackenzie answers DM’s and will reach out to people, but her main focus is on upcycling and posting most of the content you see! She also loves scrolling through social media and interacting with others over their posts. But in the end, it’s a group effort. We always check in with each other, make decisions together, and support one another.

A happiness jar upcycled from a glass jar

Our Mission

Upcycling and repurposing are amazing ways people can help the planet while also not breaking their wallets. It’s a win-win. But not many people know about it or realize how wasteful our current system is. That’s why we created Upcycled You. It’s a place to gather inspiration, see how easy upcycling can be, learn more about fast fashion and understand our cradle to grave consumer habits. Our goal is to demonstrate ways you can live a more sustainable life and how upcycling helps you do that!

Cropped upcycled shirt repurposed from a dance costume

The Future

Although we don’t yet have 1000 followers, (so I guess we still don’t deserve our A), Upcycled You has become a platform where we’ve had the opportunity to share our love for upcycling and become inspired by other talented creators. We want to continue expanding our platform by collaborating with sustainability enthusiasts and finding new ways to extend our impact to make our voices heard. We hope you stick around for the journey!