Goodwill's Bridal Showcase

This year was Goodwill's first ever Bridal Showcase, a one day bridal gown sale at our store on Archer and Broadway downtown. Even though we were raising money for our programs, the sale is meant to be a way for low income brides to find their dream dress. I had a blast planning this event and it went very well, raising lots of money for our Career Connection Centers.

Our sale started at 7 am on a Saturday morning and we had a line of about 100 people waiting outside the doors who were thrilled to find gowns from $25 to $400.  Hundreds of gowns were donated to our stores and donation centers and also from local bridal boutiques.

My favorite part of the day was when I helped a bride find her dream dress. She was 22 years old and had some disabilities, and was there with a woman who was not her mom, but acted as her mother figure.  They were scouring the racks to find a dress in a size 24 for the bride-to-be and were having no luck. Seeing this adorable bride-to-be almost in tears because she cant fit any of the dresses, I decided to help them look.  I wasn't even sure if we had a size 24 dress and I was praying for God to help me find just one dress in her size.  On the last rack I was feeling pretty discouraged and was thinking I would have to tell her I couldn't find one... and then I saw it. A size 24 dress! And it was a beautiful strapless with some beading.

I grabbed the dress and made my way to the bride, who started crying when she saw I had a dress. She didn't even try it on and she was crying.  After getting her into a fitting room and lacing her up,  we took a picture of her in the gown and showed it to her. Needless to say she was beyond excited. The dress was $150, a bargain by dress standards, but she couldn't afford it.  I was so sad thinking she wouldn't get her dress I almost offered to buy it for her, when her mother figure said she would buy it.  The only thing she wanted in return was for the bride to dust her house once a week for a few months.  That was all it took for me to start tearing up. All the craziness leading up to the event, and my bad attitude towards working at 6:00 am on a Saturday seemed so small seeing how we helped this deserving bride.

I told the photographer I am never in pictures from our events, so we had a mini photo shoot :)

Thrifted Dining Chairs: Redo

Fixing up these chairs has been a project of mine for a few weekends and they are finally done! I found these chairs for free outside a shopping mall. Apparently a store was getting new "husband chairs" as I call them, there were more than 20 of them by the dumpster. The chairs themselves were in really great condition. They are sturdy and have great wood and padding for the cushions. I think I accidentally deleted my before pictures of the whole chairs, but the ones below are the ugly fabric on the cushions and some of the damage they had.

After finding the perfect fabric I removed all the staples from the bottom of the chair cushions, there were a ton! A good sign they were made well I guess. These cushions were a little harder than most to recover because they have a inverted corner on two sides and I had to figure out how get the fabric to fold correctly.

Since I'm crazy, I decided to sand and restain the chairs. After hours of standing, probably 2 and a half per chair, I was ready to stain.

It was freezing this day so I was all bundled up in my Dad's work coat

I decideded on a mahogany stain because I like to look of dark wood, but the espresso and balck stains were just too dark for me.

Love my "new" chairs!