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Showing posts with label clothing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clothing. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Shopping your old things rings in the holiday

Getting ready to shop old things into new.
L-R Linda Reinhart,Katrina  Hendricks, Linda Ferris,Kim Vincent, Katie Harvie, Jillian Toomey

Little hands and big hands-young children love to help


A great way to recycle the things in your closet or your child’s closet is to have a swap shop. My youngest daughter, a senior in college, decided to invite her friends over to do just that. It’s green, it’s fun, and it’s free.

She started by extending an invitation through Facebook asking her guests to bring along their old garments with a yummy goodie. All you have to do is set a date, sift through your closet and you’re ‘good to go’ swap and shop it up. The benefit: a cleaner more organized closet, new clothes and accessories for free, and many items donated to support your favorite charity.

About ten friends responded and got together for the second successful clothing swap this year. The first successful spring/summer swap was organized by Jillian Toomey and held in July of 2010. The night was filled with clothes and college stories and everyone got to save a little cash, which was crucial.

It works really well if you hold re-swaps twice a year making it easier to grab the two opposite seasons of ward robe, spring/summer and fall/winter.

Each person cleaned out their closet, arrived with clothes and accessories that no longer interested them, and proceeded to lay out their things in a loosely organized fashion.

"One girl's junk is another girl's treasure," said Jillian Toomey as she modeled a sassy new dress a friend brought to the swap.

The girls went right to work, displaying all like items together for easy access, creating an in home bargain basement of second-hand stuff to reclaim. They shopped with vigor as if the living room was Canal St. in NY, while they enjoyed a smorgasbord of snacks, laughs and refreshment.

Music played while everyone browsed couches of fabric and tables of textiles for something old, something borrowed for at least six months, and even something cool, like a hip pair of blue jeans. A floor mirror was placed conveniently in the middle of the room to give each person an optimum look at the wares they happened to be trying on for size and style.

Collin Toomey watches as Aunt Lynn; Mom , Michelle Toomey; and Aunt Natalie, shop at the green swap.

Articles from coats and scarves to shoes and hand bags to sweaters and T’s to perfumes and lotions and even jewelry and fashion belts were swapped and swiped before the night was over. Everyone went home happy with a bag or two of new old stuff to add to their wardrobe.

Cleaning out your closet and finding an item you forgot you even had gives you the sense you’ve just gone shopping. The clothing swap takes it one step further, allowing friends to get together for a good cause and go home with something new without having to spend a dime.

‘If we did this a few times a year we’d pay a lot less,’ says one swapper shopper at the green garments gathering.

This is the second time this year that Jillian has held a green swap shop and this mom even walked away with a couple of tops and a great little pair of shoes. I couldn’t resist, and it was so much fun seeing the girls take an interest in something from my closet that I had long grown tired of wearing.

At the end of the night, the girls collected all the clothes which weren’t swapped then and bagged them up for their local charities.





Natalie Macmillan,Jillian Toomey,Katie Harvie, Linda Ferris,Kim Vincent, Linda Reinhart,Katrina Hendricks, Lynn Toomey, and Courtney Neforas - Clothes and items ready to be donated to local charities.

Shopping for free is fun and charitable.
Give back this holiday!

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Excerpt from Growing Up Crazy by Bonnie J.Toomey

Freeze Pops



Winter 1972







There’s ice on my bedroom window in little cornered crescents. It’s still dark out, but it is time to get up for school anyway which I happen to like a lot.



I wriggle out of my pajamas and pull on a hand me down sweater and jeans from my aunt who works as a nurse in Boston. She was always giving us bags of clothes which I would pull apart and alter to fit my style and size. This gave my wardrobe an eccentric and eclectic look all its own which I thought was quite individual and even artsy.



I hated to leave the warmth under the pile of blankets and old coats I had layered on for extra insulation at night. It could get pretty cold upstairs this time of year, and the transition from clothes to no clothes to clothes again was a little unpleasant in the wintertime. There’s never been heat up here, Dad didn’t put it in, but instead cut a hole in the floor the size of a wood stove chimney pipe to let whatever heat rise up from our wood stove down in the kitchen.



“Heat rises,” was how Dad explained it to us. I kept thinking, well maybe it does, but I sure can’t feel it up here.



It is colder than usual this morning. My fingers don’t work as quickly as I want them to. I head downstairs where mom and dad are hunkered under some blankets on the couch which they must have dragged in front of the fireplace during the night. They’re still sleeping. Dad’s head at one end of the couch and mom curled up at the other end.



I grab my bag and step outside into the ice cold morning and my nostrils form tiny icy needles on the first breath in sticking together like metallic glue. Luckily, the bus arrives in less than a minute but long enough to finish turning my toes in my sneakers into ten freeze pops.



I slide in next to Claire careful not to break off any digits.



“Vaugn, you look really cold,” she says, very concerned. The newscaster on the bus radio says that it’s five degrees this morning over central New England, and that it warmed up from the overnight low of zero.



I explain that I think our furnace broke again and she offers me her mittens with the fancy rabbit fur cuffs.



“Thanks, Claire,” I say, and between her offering and the noisy over head heater blowing puffs of warmth into the air, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.



Excerpt from Leaf Landing by Bonnie J. Toomey

French Lesson







French is not the easiest class to miss.



I missed almost two weeks straight



after Mom died



and a lot of other days before that



and now I am really behind.



Mom wanted me to take French



because she thought it would help



in ballet class.



Dad lost a couple of bids.



He says people are losing



their jobs,



the economy is bad



The TV keeps warning



unemployment is up,



gas prices are up



and people are fed up.



I don’t know why Dad



has to watch



it only makes him



yell at the TV



Dad says we need to conserve more than we have been



now the house feels cooler.



When I complain,



Dad says



to go outside and come back in ,



then I’ll feel warmer.



Harriet and I spend our time bundled in



an extra layer of clothes



or dragging an afghan around



like giant moths in cocoons.



We are out of butter again.



Dad says



to try using peanut butter.



Well, isn’t the word,



butter,



in it?



Harriett won’t eat her toast



and it just sits on the plate



getting cold



like the floors



in this house



and suddenly the one phrase



in French,



“It is cold.” comes back to me:



“Il fait froid,



la maison est fait froide."