Oh flip! Some have seen it done on TV, while others just do it because they enjoy it. Upcycling or “flipping,” as it is sometimes called, is buying something at a secondhand, discounted price and then fixing it up to resell for a profit. On July 21–22, three teams entered a competition to see who could flip the biggest.
Each team met at secondhand store Savers on July 21 at 5:15 p.m. The contest was simple: each team had $50 and a one-hour time limit to find everything they wished to flip within the store.
Then, the teams had to fix up their items, which were to be resold the following day at the Ogden Farmers Market. Artists from The Local Artisan Collective aided the teams with ideas for upcycling their items.
Jasmin Shower, one of the artists helping the teams, said, “I think a lot of them are really creative people already. We’ll just be helping them out if they have questions or if they need help doing something that they’ve never done before.”
She continued, “I think of a lot of it is just condensing it all down because you get a lot of crazy ideas, but you also have a such a short amount of time to do it all.”
The contestants had the help of the artists of The Local Artisan Collective for a total of three hours. The projects had to be purchased at under a $50 budget, and they needed to be completed by 10 p.m. that night.
“I’ve never done this in a contest before,” said Susan Snyder, one of the contestants. “I’ve done this type of thing for myself, as a hobby, all the time, but this is my first time competing in a contest. It’s pretty ambitious what we’re going to do. I hope we can make it work.”
On July 22, the teams had from 9 a.m.–2 p.m. at the Ogden Farmers Market to sell their items. The team who made the most profit — and therefore the biggest flip — won the contest and got to keep the money at the end of the day.
Snyder said, “There are so many cool things you can do that just look so much better than the five things you find at the big chain stores.
“So when you create it yourself, it’s really neat, and it doesn’t cost near as much as the other places. It also gives you a big sense of accomplishment. It’s very enjoyable, and not many people know about it. This is so much fun!”
