Tuesday, November 8, 2011

I ♥ Goodwill

Last year I lost a good bit of weight. Enough so that not many of my clothes fit anymore. I was more than happy to give my clothes away, but couldn’t afford to just go out and replace them all with new clothes. So I decided to check out the local Goodwill.

Wow! How did I not know that you can get really great stuff there? The first thing I got was a really awesome zebra striped jacket. (Ok, it’s not zebra striped, it’s black and white stripes. I’m not sure I’m quite ready for actual zebra stripes…even if I could find it at Goodwill.) Anyway, the jacket is awesome and I wore it all winter/spring.

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I found new (to me) jeans, shoes, skirts, and tshirts. I loved that the sky was the limit as far as colors available at Goodwill—instead of there being only the 4-5 colors that are the colors of this season, there was an entire rainbow to chose from. And dresses? Well let me tell you, I found awesome dresses at Goodwill. I have a suspicion that the rest of the world isn’t wearing dresses as much as we Mormons are…

I augmented my Goodwill finds with a few new things, but at least half of what I have been wearing since last year has come from Goodwill.


Several weeks ago I went to Goodwill again to buy pieces for the kids’ Halloween costumes. I thought I was going to have to dye something orange for Jared, but once again Goodwill came through for me. I have no idea who on earth wore these orange clothes, but I am so grateful that they did!

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The girls wanted vampire cloaks. I figured I could find some black skirts and then cut them for cloaks. Then Rachel told me how she’d really dreamed that the cloaks would be red on the inside. I wasn’t at all sure how I was going to accomplish that.

I got to Goodwill and started looking at the black skirts. I saw a couple that I thought might work, and then I saw it. A black skirt with really interesting cutwork and embroidery all along the bottom. I decided then and there that I would cut it in half and make both girls’ cloaks out of this one skirt.

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Then, as I was walking around I found a red formal dress with plenty of fabric to line both cloaks. I’m not sure the dress had ever even been worn!

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I thought they turned out great.

And, while I was looking to see if they had 11 year old sized boots (which they didn’t), I found three awesome pair of shoes for me.

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Now, with life as we know it changing so much, I’m thinking—it’s a really good thing I’m already so well acquainted with Goodwill!

5 comments:

  1. Love the cloaks! and I'm always impressed by the qualities of your finds. Probably because I live in Rexburg, it seems like most of the stuff at our thrift store is worn OUT by the time it gets there. I would never buy shoes there, for instance... I did get 2 sweaters recently to refashion into cardigans though - I'm going to blog about it sometime...

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  2. Amen, sista! I buy 3/4th of my wardrobe from thrift stores. LOVE the black and white jacket BTW.

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  3. Those cloaks are pretty amazing. I hope your kids know just how lucky they are...

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  4. Oh Cindy Lynn. I wish you could get shoes used there in Rexburg. The shoe area is a place I try to not spend TOO much time in here, at my local thrift store. I will end up coming home with 5-6 pairs for various members of the family. One of the best shoe finds lately? A pair of new Columbia slip ons that Hunter has worn every day since. $70 shoes for $3, ok. I'm with you Cindy. Thrift stores can almost be heaven!

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  5. how many of Jared's friends knew who he was? I was prisoner 24601 last year at our ward party and maybe 30-40% of the adults had a clue who I was.

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