Monday 16 February 2015

Stamping feet.

Today I took my boyfriend on a very romantic, post Valentine's weekend....charity shop wander. The poor sausage took the whole day off work to follow me around 30+ shops and spend half the day on the bus!

My first purchase was this ring from the British Red Cross shop in Hyde. I fell in love with the design of it immediately and it only set me back 50p! The Red Cross is one of my favourite shops in the Greater Manchester area - the staff use the floor space really well and the clothes are presented nicely in colour blocks.  


The British Red Cross have a partnership with H&M which means they get some of the end of season unsold items which would otherwise go to landfill. I think this is an excellent idea - it brings a younger customer base to the shops who will undoubtably browse the rest of the shop and raise even more money. They also have damaged H&M items - bags with faulty zips, jumpers with small holes etc. Nothing they stock in this section is beyond repair. I've had a few pieces from this range and just hand sewn them. 


The next stop was St Ann's Hospice in Cheadle which I'm always dying to take people to! The shop front is nothing out of the ordinary and the ground floor stocks normal charity shop wares but when you go upstairs, the shop transforms! There are two rooms upstairs - one is a wedding section filled with beautiful wedding and bridesmaids dresses, suits and hats. The other is pictured below - it's a vintage clothing and home-wares section converted from an old bar and coffee lounge (shame about the Lidl bag in shot!). I love this room, especially the design of the glass in the ceiling. It's a shame the charity don't advertise the rooms more as I think it would really attract more visitors!



I also picked up this dark green shirt in Barnardo's in Cheadle - it was from the £1.99 shop I mentioned in a previous post. It has really cute little buttons and I like the pocket details.
The breaking news about Barnardo's hadn't seem to have put off the Cheadle residents as the shop was as busy as ever!



I paid £1 for this gold coloured necklace in Cancer Research. I haven't bought a new statement necklace in ages - I'll probably wear it every day for about a month and then it'll never be seen again!


My final purchase was this black Asos dress which cost £4.25, again from Cancer Research but the Withington shop this time. There were two very similar black dresses hanging on the same rail which I could've snapped up too - no doubt they were all in the same donation!



Not a great day in terms of the ratio of shops visited:purchases made. Having said that, I've been going a bit mad recently! I bought three items from Age UK in Sale on Friday - the gorgeous coat I posted on Instagram which cost £2.49, a white blouse with collar which was £1.20 and a great jumper, also £1.20. Everything is half price in the shop in preparation for them closing down on the 21st Feb. I felt really sad going in, especially now the charity have pulled the closing date forward a week. I dropped in with a present for the Assistant Manager as it was her last day and felt a little bit teary handing it over.

Has anyone visited the St Ann's shop in Cheadle or any other shops with unusual design or history?

Char x

1 comment:

  1. I love charity shopping, it's the first place I look if I'm searching for something specific (a rarity, I prefer the thrill of finding something random!) That's a pretty good amount of shops you managed to squeeze in, good thing you found some goodies! :)

    ReplyDelete