Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged upcycle

Marolsha Jewelry

When you live in a city like New York or Chicago, it's fairly easy to find your way around. For the most part, urban planners patterned these cities on a grid with numbered streets indicating one direction (East/West) and avenues or named streets indicating the perpendicular other (North/South). So if you're at my favorite Mexican restaurant in the East Village and want to get to my favorite all-veg diner in the Lower East Side, you can do so with ease simply by knowing the cross streets.

Green Arm Cuff with Wooden Marble Buttons / Flax Farm Hoop Earrings / Face Scrubbies

I have a proud family history of hand-me-downs, secondhand stores, and thrift. My mother once had a bumper sticker: “This car stops for yard sales.” I am familiar with “rummaging” as a sanctioned, communal activity for acquiring goods; have visited flea markets in several countries; filled paper sacks at $1 “bag sales”; and as a child, I often accompanied my realtor father to tag and estate sales. For years, I have longed to visit the Highway 127 Yard Sale.

Upcycled Box

When I met my friend Jo at Café Coffee Day, I brought a gift for her with me: York Peppermint Patties. My mom gave me a bag full of the tiny circular treats before I hopped on a plane to return to the place of my temporary residence. From time to time she sends me care packages with miscellaneous unattainable American goodies that can’t be found in Kolkata’s plentiful markets: grits, nutritional yeast, black beans.

Found Object Necklace

Found object art first made an impression on me studying the Dada movement in a mixed media sculpture class.