One of the best items of clothing to easily reinvent is a man’s shirt, so they are a great place to start if you are a novice at altering clothes. They are readily available in charity shops, inexpensive, and so versatile.
Here are a couple of ideas of what you can do with a man’s shirt. If you don’t want to start cutting your shirt up, just try it out rolling up the sleeves and with a belt. Or, they make great pyjamas!
When I first saw this bag, I left it because I already have far too many. But in the back of my mind I knew I’d probably end up buying it – I can’t ever leave a good bag behind! Sure enough…
Here it is, modelled by Bigfoot.
I’ve always got a book to be reading for uni, bu
t not all my bags
have enough room for it. This one seems like it was made for books though, as I’ve shown here with the Thesaurus I picked up at the same time (I’m also terrible when it comes to English language books!)
It was just £5, and the Thesaurus was £1.50.
I bought them at the Scope shop in Slough, which is quite small but reasonably priced. I’ve picked up a few things from there in the past, books mostly, but not ever thought about what the charity actually does. So I thought it was time to educate myself!
Scope’s vision is, in their words, “a world where disabled people have the same opportunities to fulfil their life ambitions as non-disabled people.” The charity started in 1952, and since then has been working hard to fulfill their vision through many different means. They provide helpful services for disabled people such as education, activity schemes, supported independent living and employment training. Support is also given to families through practical information and support, especially during a child’s early years, or at the point of diagnosis.
Scope also helps raise awareness of current issues and gets involved with campaigns to influence government policy. Currently, there is an opportunity to join “The Hardest Hit March” on 11th May, which is aiming to make the government think about how the spending cuts will impact disabled people.
For more information, please visit their website:
I realised the other day that a very large percentage of my bedroom consists of things that are from the charity shop or second-hand in some way. So I’d like to share with you some of those items and where they’ve come from.
Hooray for hand-me-downs! Some little wooden hangers that belonged to my mother when she was a child look great on my wall.
The classified section in local newspapers is great for sourcing second-hand furniture etc. I got my mirror for £5 from the classifieds – much less than if bought new, and it’s very pretty!
My wooden chair which cost me £5 from a charity shop, complete with weathered finish.
Charity shops are full of glassware and crockery. A collection of small glass vessels for displaying flowers can look lovely. The smaller of the two in the photo is actually a salt shaker!
Interesting jars and tins are indispensible for storing small things.
Everyone likes to get dressed up for something-or-other. It’s a great feeling, looking in the mirror and thinking, “Actually, for once I don’t look too bad!” Especially if, like me, you don’t make that much effort every day. I spent the majority of the time wearing whatever falls out of my wardrobe. But taking time to put an outfit together is fun once in a while.
The only thing is, “going out clothes” are so expensive! As a student, I try to keep to a weekly budget, and if I were to buy a new dress every time I went out, I don’t think I’d be eating! I did a little online search now, to get an idea of the average price of a dress. Below are the prices of the first dress I saw on each website.
H&M: £14.99
New Look: £25.00
Dorothy Perkins: £36.00 (this was with a 30% promo discount)
River Island: £44.99
M&S: £49.50
Zara: £49.99
Topshop: £55.00
French Connection: £82.00
Actually, I was quite surprised at one being only £14.99, but you can see that it’s averaging at about £40.00.
Although I love buying things in charity shops, I didn’t think I’d find anything good enough to wear on a night out. I bought a sleeveless jersey dress recently in the R.S.P.C.A shop, which was quite pretty, but I thought it was more of a day dress. But, with some black tights and my favourite heels (Office, but from a thrift shop), it looked quite good!
My advice follows on from last week’s post – don’t rule something out just from how it looks on the hanger. With high street shops, they work really hard at visual merchandising so it’s easy to walk in, see all the pretty displays and think, I need it all! With a charity shop, you have to try a bit harder, but when you find something, you’ll be paying a lot less. The dress I wore on Friday night cost me £3.50. I’m definitely not saying never to spend a lot of money on something, it’s just good to know that if you’re ever feeling poor but wanting something new, there are other options.
As a pair of student sisters, we don’t have a lot of money. But this is just one of the reasons why we like charity shops. Every item has a story of some sort – whether it is an unwanted present from a wacky uncle, or buried in a box for years in a rich person’s garage…it’s all unique. Equally, it’s exciting when we find something we know could be on the high street, but is a bit different. Then, once we’ve bought our book, bag, shirt or salt-shaker, we can leave knowing our purchase will be helping someone!
So, our little blog will be documenting the joys of charity shop shopping.
Becky is rather nifty with the sewing machine, and so she will be publishing a few posts about the items of clothing she’s bought, and later altered.
I (Laura) am just a bit of a magpie. I will also endeavour to find out a bit about how my pennies are helping people.
PaisleyPurses 