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!

Vanilla Panna Cotta

The other weekend the boyfriend and I were out at dinner at a great restaurant in Beaver Creek.  When the dessert menu came, they had panna cotta (one of my favorites). After placing our order for this wonderful dessert, we were told they didn't have anymore that night. Heartbroken we settled on chocolate cake, which was great, and on the house. 
Since I was craving panna cotta, I decided to find a recipe online and try to make it at home. It turned out to be such an easy recipe. 


What You Need:


3 tablespoons water


1 tablespoon powdered gelatin


4 cups heavy cream


1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise


1/2 cup sugar


Mixed berries


Directions:


In a small bowl, combine the water and gelatin and let soak about 10 minutes (do not stir). 


While the gelatin is soaking, in a medium saucepan, heat the cream, one half vanilla bean and sugar to a simmer over medium heat. Stir occasionally to dissolve the sugar. Once it simmers, turn off the heat and add the gelatin mixture, stirring to dissolve the gelatin. 
If the gelatin doesn't dissolve all the way in 3 minutes, turn the heat back on to warm it until the gelatin dissolves. Pour the mixture into 6 to 8 ramekins or dessert cups. Chill, uncovered, 2 hours.

To serve, dip the cups in hot water for 10 seconds, then turn upside down onto dessert plates (or, serve in the cups). Surround each panna cotta with berries. 

Goodwill's 4th Annual Good Exchange Fashion Show and Clothing Swap

It's been quite a while since my last post, but I have a good reason. I was in charge of my first big event as the Events Coordinator for Goodwill Industries of Denver on February 6, 2014 and I was working a lot.

If you are familiar with Goodwill, you probably know we collect donations from you, and sell them in our stores. What you probably don't know is what we do with the money we make in the stores. Even I didn't really know until after I started working at Goodwill just how many programs help the community that are funded by Goodwill.

One of the biggest programs we have is to help youth in Denver area schools think about their future. We help them apply for scholarships, teach them interview and resume skills to find jobs, and give them mentors to help them when things get hard.

Goodwill's Good Exchange Fashion Show and Clothing Swap is a great event that helps a group of students from local high school pursue their dreams of a fashion career. This year we had 14 students from Denver School of the Arts, CEC Middle College, and Northglenn High School (where I went to high school!). the students were split up into 2 teams, and each student was given an international fashion capital to use as the inspiration for their design.

This year our event was bigger than ever because we had Tim Gunn, co-host of Project Runway, and host of Project Runway: Under the Gunn as our emcee for the night! We also had Denver native Mondo Guerra, winner of Project Runway: All Stars and mentor on Project Runway:Under the Gunn, as our head judge for the 4th year in a row!  The event was a huge success and we had more than 800 guests in attendance to see Tim, Mondo and our student designers.

Here are just a few pictures from our amazing photographers at the event.

 Mondo Guerra and Tim Gunn onstage

(photo credit: Kent Meireis)

A Denver School of the Arts model shows the winning outfit to the judges. City inspiration: Tokyo.

(photo credit: Kent Meireis)

 Mondo Guerra, winner of Project Runway All Stars

(Photo credit: Sampson Leung Photogrpahy)

 The Marketing Team at Goodwill

(Photo credit: Tony Contreras Photography)

 Me, and Louise from Rit Dye, an event sponsor who donated dye 

to the student designers. This is literally the only photo of me at the event, 

since I was running around all night. 

(Photo credit: Rit Dye)

 We had a VIP event where guests were able to meet and greet with Tim and Mondo!

(Photo credit: Sampson Leung Photography) 

Tim Gunn on stage

(photo credit: Kent Meireis)

Students and the models from Denver School of the Arts

with Tim Gunn and Mondo Guerra

(Photo credit: Tony Contreras Photography) 

Shoes inspired by London. 

(Photo credit: Tony Contreras Photography)

Christmas Tree Skirt

Ugly Christmas Sweater Parties. It seems everyone is having one lately, and I've never actually had an ugly sweater to wear. It's just not my thing.  So this year, I saw a pin of someone who converted a tree skirt into a skirt for a holiday party.  Super cute idea, and I just had to try it out. 

 Of course I waited until the last minute to make it, so I went with the easiest steps possible.  I wrapped the tree skirt around my waist, and had my mom pin across it where the extra fabric. This created a guide for me to use when cutting off the extra fabric.   (back side of the skirt is below)

Then I used sticky Velcro pieces to hold the skirt in place.  Unfortunately, the Velcro wasn't sticking that well to the felt of my skirt so I had to sew them on.   

I was going to throw away the skirt after the holiday season, but I'll be keeping it, everyone loved it! 

A Grinch Date Night

Christmas movies are guilty pleasure of mine, I will try my hardest to watch them all in the month before Christmas. However, my boyfriend doesn't share this interest with me. So when I found a date night idea from the Dating Divas for dinner and the movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas, one I know he'll watch, I knew I had to plan it for the bf and I. We had a great time planning a menu with a theme, and it was easy and free!

I printed out this FREE printable invitation, and delivered it to J's house.

For dinner we had a green smoothie, and tried to have a green meal, but the pesto didn't have a lot of color.

Winter Porch Decorations

After so many of the neighbors complemented my fall decorations, I had to continue with winter.  

I really wish I had some wooden skis though....

DIY Advent Calendar

When I was a child, one of my favorite things about the countdown to Christmas, was the advent calendar my family had.  It was a wooden tree that hung on the wall, and each day you would take a mini ornament out of a box and place it on the tree.  My sister and I had to split the days by even and odd so we wouldn't fight over who got to do it each day.

So when I found a wooden tree advent calendar at Micheals I knew I needed it.  I love having this new advent calendar that reminds me a little Christmases past.

I painted the tree and glued Christmas paper to the front of each drawer, 

and added sparkling sticker numbers.