Do you op shop til you drop?

Sandlewood Op Shop is planning it's first ever Op Shopping Tour!

This fundraising event will allow us to provide much needed help to our most disadvantaged clients.

• Join us on Saturday February 23rd for a fun hosted op shop tour in Brisbane South.

Bus departs Garden City at 8.30am
returning at 1pm.

• Morning tea snacks supplied

(byo drinks)

• Lucky door prize; fund raising raffle

• $55 per person ($25 deposit required) Booking essential as there are limited places!

Contact desley@sandlewoodprojects.com.au for further info.

Back to school...

I know personally, with 2 children in school this year (and only one income) it's going to cost us a motza to put our children into school this year!

Even though my girls both will attend a local Public School, book lists alone for the 2 girls this year topped $350, uniforms about $300 each (only buying basics) and decent school shoes around $80-120 per child.  That isn't including the Compulsory levy of $100 per child.  Hello New Year, buh-bye all the money I had in the bank.  

At a local Public High School where a young refugee boy will be starting high school it will cost his single mum $415 for their resource levy, and about the same again in uniforms ... that is without the book list.  

We are trying to help out some of our most disadvantaged clients with the increasing costs of our "free" education system.  

One of our lovely supporters, Erin from Repeated Originals has kindly donated to us this stunning Vintage Bridal Gown, to try and raise funds for the cause.

Desley has described the dress as "The guipure lace is wonderful quality and the two garments are in wonderful condition.  The guipure lace is European (maybe swiss) cotton guipure and would cost close to $1,000 to replace" 


The measurements are :
Bust 34"
Waist to 29"
Hips to 36"
Approx height to 5'4" - however the sheath dress does have generous side seams for alterations of up to 2" and the hem can go down about another inch comfortably.


We have listed it on eBay and would really appreciate it if you could share it with all your vintage loving friends.

Here is the :

Link for Vintage Swiss Guipure Lace Wedding Dress and Coat

we're almost out of the terrible 2's

Yep!

I've been a bit scarce from blogging of late, but with good reason.

We recently (probably in the past 4 weeks) have DOUBLED the number of people we have following us on Facebook! This is VERY exciting for me.  

I have been involved with Sandlewood Op Shop from the very beginning, and even before it's conception.  While the organisation Sandlewood has been around for many years, the Op Shop was the vision of my mum Desley, who spent many hours documenting, tabling and reporting so that the Organisation was able to get a Certificate of Sanction allowing it to operate the Op Shop.  The Op Shop was her "baby" as it were.  However, after ill health in November, she had to give up the reigns, and I was left in charge.

While I had always liked working at the Op Shop, I never enjoyed the mountains of paperwork involved (I still hate it!) and I was very frustrated by the prospect that we had.  We needed to grow the business in order to be able to help more people.  But to grow the business we needed to sell more, and with such limited time due to being taxi driver to my 2 girls, and a lack of honest & reliable volunteers I was stuck. Not only that, but space restrictions at the shop are so prohibitive that we aren't able to sell furniture etc, despite being offered it often by our donators.

When the Shop opened we used to sell things on eBay, but this same became too time consuming, and also very costly. 

Anyway, I started trying to hammer out a few things on Facebook, since anyone will tell you, I'm on it day and night.  Eventually we started getting more followers than just family and friends, and then something happened.  Literally within 2 weeks our followers doubled from around 250 to over 500!!

As a result, I've since been selling more via the Internet and meeting some really lovely, interesting people in the process.

But I digress, the point of my post.  

It's almost our Birthday!
We are turning 3 on the 31st of August.  

Source: enchantedmommy.com via Lee Ann on Pinterest

I need some help to try and think of a good special to run for our Birthday week.  It has to have something to do with the number 3 of course!   

The Great Adelaide Whirlwind Op Shop Tour

Last month on the Queens' Jubilee Long weekend we visited Adelaide.

It was the first time for us, with our main reason for visiting being *ahem* the Adelaide Zoo, so we could see the pandas.  

The reality was, that we just wanted to check out the Op Shops in another part of Australia!  


So on Saturday morning, we were absolutely delighted when Tami from More Than Vintage came by to collect us for what I have since dubbed the Great Adelaide Whirlwind Op Shop Tour, or GAWOST for short. 


Ever the host, Tami met us at our hotel and swiftly whisked us away to her favourite Op Shops to hunt for bargains and special little treasures.  All the while delighting us with trivia about Adelaide, like the population statistics {LOL - sorry it's an in joke!} 


After venturing into the first op shop, the boot of her poor car was heaving with all of our purchases.   


I was saddened to have to leave behind the.most.stunning! vintage blue dinner set, but alas there was no way to get her home safely to Brisbane :(  


We ventured into a grand total of 5 op shops in Adelaide on the GAWOST, in a period of just short of 3.5 hours.  Some were small, some were huge, but none really held more treasures than that first shop we ventured into bright and early on that Saturday morning. 


Just to prove it, here is Tami (left) and Desley (right) showcasing the results of the shopping trip back at the hotel.

We want to thank Tami so much for taking the time out to meet us, and to take us to her favourite shopping haunts.  We thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the GAWOST, and hope that we can come back again some time soon to continue on the adventure.


For those of you who haven't seen her store, Tami runs More Than Vintage where she sells an eclectic selection of VINTAGE - COUNTRY - SHABBY CHIC - VINTAGE STYLE - linen - craft - homewares - home decor.

DOILEYS

Doileys are one of those things that are easy to pick up in an op shop (Sandlewood Op Shop is no exception!).  

Many of them are handmade with love by previous generations and although some can be slightly imperfect, there are many uses for them that can still show off their true beauty and all the hard work someone has put into creating it.

Here are five ideas for ways to use Doileys...

1. Frame them

Photo Courtesy of craftynest.com

2. Jazz up your Clothes

Photo Courtesy of blog.craftzine.com

Photo courtesy of gizbabe.typepad.com

3. Make a Lampshade, Cover a Coathanger, or make a Dreamcatcher Yes, I know this is THREE, but think of it as 2 bonus ideas ;) 

Photo Courtesy of  abeautifulmess.typepad.com

4. Create Dainty, Romantic Decor 

Photo Courtesy of twinklemama.files.wordpress.com

Photo Courtesy of greenowlcrafts.blogspot.com.au

Photo Courtesy of needle-exchange.ca

5. Create funky jewellery and accessories

Photo Courtesy of sweetpaul.typepad.com

Photo Courtesy of  sincerelykinsey.blogspot.com

Photo Courtesy of craftster.org

Welcome back .... introducing "5 ways to"

BUTTONS

WOW! It's been almost 12 months since I blogged for the shop. How fast that time has gone!

Recently Des has been spending a bit of time doing some research on different uses for some of the common things that get donated to the Op Shop. This has been generating a fair bit of interest, so I've decided that once a week I'm going to blog on 5 ways to reuse/recycle/upscale a specific item.

Today I'm going to concentrate on Buttons.  You'll find that at most Op Shops you can pick up an assortment of buttons but my personal favourite are Vintage buttons.  

They aren't as easy to pick up around the traps these days, but if you are lucky enough and happen to find them, they are little treasures!  

Here are  a few simple ideas that you can do to recycle old buttons.  Please note that none of these items are actually with us for sale - they are simply to inspire those who like to create. 

Photo http://craftsolutions.tumblr.com/

Photo : http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=287652.0

Photo http://blog.craftzine.com

Photo http://buttonitupbook.wordpress.com

Photo : http://www.etsy.com/listing/94077960/button-heart-lamp-shade-cream-lamp-shade

have you visited since we remodelled?

Remodelling is almost complete and we would like to thank all our wonderful customers for their patience during our crazy shinnanigans (aka the shop refit). 

The refit has been a huge success, with more people than ever visiting our humble little shop since we reopened with our new floorplan.  We have been receiving many compliments from people visiting ever since!

There is more space to walk around inside, our fitting room has moved, and our front window has had a complete transformation with new shelving which allows us to display many more items than we ever could have dreamed of !!

I must try to remember to take some pictures and upload them to the blog and the website!

Right now I only have this picture, which was taken Thursday night after many hours of frustration trying to assemble the shelves that form the new window display...

The window display is constantly changing as things are sold and new items are donated or unearthed from storage.

Recent new additions to the shelves include some great science fiction novels by Robin Hobb,  Lian Hearn and many many more (we received about 2 full boxes of sci fi books so if this is your genre, please pop in and have a look - we have many that don't even fit on the shelves yet!).

So if you haven't popped in recently please call by and tell us what you think of our new look shop! 

all the cool people come to Sandlewood Op Shop.... seriously!

Yesterday we had the pleasure of having Katie in our shop. 

Katie is a personal style blogger and has created the blog Be Inspired. 

Her blog aims to "teach you a thing or two about how easy it is to be fabulous, confident and stylish, on any budget".

She's also a guest blogger for MTV fora.
Last month Katie bought a great jacket from the shop, which you can read all about by clicking here

Her next piece will also feature another purchase from the shop, so be sure to check it out.

slacker

I'm sure it can't just be me who finds these colder months harder to cope with. Seriously.
I get so slack that many things that I can keep up with in the warmer months (like blogging) go by the wayside.  Perhaps it's because my fingers are like tiny little icy-poles while I type this blog post ...

So, yeah, I've been really slack with blogging lately. Hopefully that will all change soon.

So much has been happening at the shop. If you've popped in recently you would have noticed that we no longer have the adjoining shop :(   Sadly that's been taken over by office space.

Our tiny little shop is literally bursting at the seams while we try to cram everything from 1.75 shops down to just 1.  

We are in the process currently of looking for new shopfittings to refit the shop. 
Well, when I say new I mean new to us... it's silly of me to dismiss the fact that we are an op shop and funds are tight so we'll probably end up with someones second or third hand fittings - it's all about recycling!

So hopefully in the next few weeks you will see a transformation take place.
From crowded & cluttered to slightly more spacious and organised.  That will mean that all our regular suspects like the books, shoes and toys that we keep getting asked about daily, should be able to be moved back in to the shop. 

So please bear with us while we make some big changes to our little place!

1,000 toys appeal deadline rapidly approaches

As you may know we are holding an appeal to get 1,000 new toys for the Fairfield Floods Family Fun Fair on Saturday 16th April.

The event is being run by the Moorooka Lions, and it looks set to be a great fun-filled day with rides, entertainment and food galore (yummo!)

We had been pledged many toys, however many of them were simply not in a condition that we would give away, let alone have Santa deliver.  We have asked for these toys to be NEW and in their original boxes or with original swing tags attached.

Just thought I'd share a few pics of some of the items we have received - this is just a small handful on one of the days where I actually had my phone/camera handy to take pics.

This is one of my favourites - I mean, what kid wouldn't be thrilled to open up their present to find milk bottle lids threaded onto string?!

This poor fellow looked like he'd been in the floods himself :(

And this guy definitely wasn't anywhere near new condition.


So, I'm urging you all, if your children have toys that they have never even taken out of the boxes (mine did!) or you have $10 spare in this weeks pay, please consider buying a toy so we can make these children (who have been through so much) smile!

Don't forget - the jumble sale is this SUNDAY from 7am!!

A big thanks to the Inchcolm Hotel who have generously donated a voucher for : 1 nights accommodation in a Deluxe Suite, Continental breakfast for 1 in Seasalt at Armstrongs, a bottle of bubbly & chocolates on arrival, and a midday checkout. Valid until 20 June 2011. *conditions apply* This will be included in our fundraising efforts on Sunday :)

Visit their website here  http://www.theinchcolm.com.au/  to see this beautiful boutique hotel

Pick us! Pick us!

We'd be ever so grateful if you would vote for us in the Suncorp Back to Business Grants.

It gives us the opportunity to win a $5,000 grant to further assist our community. 
As you know, we'll be in it long after the floods - and will continue to help those who need it ;)
Our committment and vision is to improve the quality of lives of our less fortunate community members - flooded or not!


You can vote for us at this page https://suncorpbacktobusiness.com.au/nominations/sandlewood-projects?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d918764601538c5%2C0

A trip to Brassall State School

Last week we happened to receive two violins at the shop.  They were donated on the premise that we would get them to a school that was inundated in the floods.  When I tried the local school that the donator wanted them to go to - I found that they did not have an instrumental music program, therefore they were no use to them.  I started looking to find an alternative school, who had also been inundated, but also met the requirement of being in a less fortunate socio-econimic area than some of the other local schools which flooded.

I came across (by chance) a page about Brassall State School, who were totally submerged.  They lost their entire music department including all the instruments that are hired to the students in the program.  I spoke with a friend of mine, Katherine, from Hannah's Foundation as they are co-ordinating efforts to re-equip the school's music department.

Today, I went for a drive and took those two violins to Anna (in Admin) at Brassall State School.  She was so appreciative for the donations, but like most flood affected communities, was worried about so many others!  Brassall seem set to be able to replace all their books lost in the floods, and their music program is well on the way to being rebuilt. 

We also delivered to them some other useful items -

Cleaning products that were donated to us by Somerset Environmental Services from South Australia.

also a load of RID Insect Repellant which was donated by Thorley Laboratories.

Anna said that the RID would be very helpful as the kids in grades 5-7 are just setting out on their school camps in the coming weeks.   The cleaning products will replace those lost in the flood and she said the janitors will make good use of them.

Trent - the 7yr old legend

Picture this - your son is turning 7.  He says he wants to have a birthday party but instead of the people bringing presents for him, he says he wants his friends to bring presents for the kids who lost their things in the floods.

Sounds like a story... but it's not!

Young Trent had his 7th birthday party and that's exactly what he did.  He asked his friends to bring along a gift suitable for a child who had lost their toys in the floods - and his mum brought him all the way to our shop to donate them so they could go directly to flood affected kids.

Here's Trent with his load of goodies for the kids!

Many THANK YOU's to some generous businesses!

A HUGE THANK YOU to all who have donated items for people in the community who have been affected by the recent floods.


We have several amazingly generous donations, both from individuals and from businesses wanting to help!

We would like to thank the following companies for their recent donations :

Jacqueline Davis and Paragold for the donation of new womens nightwear

John & Ruth Lui of Winalite Australia P/L for the donation of womens sanitary products

Hailey Douglas and Aqueo Import and Distribution Pty Ltd for the donation of new Havaianas

 

Almost a Happy New Year!

I don't know if it's just me, but this year seems to have gone way too quickly!  It seems like only yesterday we were in the preparation stage of opening, and yet this year we celebrated our 1st Birthday of the Shop and also our 2nd Christmas.  We started up the website, and I tried to keep up (not very sucessfully I might add!) with the blogging to keep everyone in the loop of what was going on!

We've  been in the local Newspapers, and featured in local magazines like the Westender http://www.westender.com.au/

This year, we once again were able to assist many disadvantaged members of our community with the help of some wonderful friends. 

The lovely people at Givit http://www.givit.org.au/ assisted us this year in our Christmas Hamper Appeal by spreading the word on their website, and assisted us with the task of requesting donations of many non perishable food and household items. 

For those not in the know, Givit is a not-for-profit Organisation run by a team of hardworking and dedicated volunteers.  Their aim is to match up people in need with items that people no longer want or need.  I strongly urge you, if you have items of furniture or other items that you are considering donating to charity, please consider putting your unwanted item on Givit's website.   This allows organisations such as housing providers, crisis accommodation facilities, community mental health agencies and groups who help disadvantaged people in our area, to request and receive goods that their clients need.  

So anyway, the wonderful staff at Givit really helped enable us to help out families who really were in need at this time of year.  

Our wonderful friends Tom and Steph at Storage King Salisbury http://www.storageking.com.au/salisbury/  offered us up some space, and storage bags to pack all our parcels. 

 

With our volunteer troops Conwae, Cathy, Helen, Lee, Rosie and of course Desley, the team packed a total of 37 hampers and gift packs that helped out a total of 61 people in total.   I'm sure you'll agree that for such a tiny shop this is a huge feat and one we should be very proud of !! And so with that, Christmas was over, and it is ALMOST 2011!   I am so proud to be able to do such a wonderful "job" where I can be involved with such wonderful giving people and see all our hard work really pay off. 

So, at this point - I would like to thank a few people. 

First off, thanks to Desley, who literally never stops working for the Shop.  Even when she's not at the Shop (which she often is much longer than the opening hours), she's doing something for the Shop, or a client, or someone else who needs something.
A huge thank you to our volunteers this year, Grace, Ellie, Conwae, Cathy, Helen, Lee, Rosie, John and I would like to particularly thank Marie, who always comes rain, hail or shine and always has a smile on her face, no matter how big the daunting pile of donations she is standing in! 

Thank you also to Peter for stepping up and being the delivery/collections person most of the time until recently, despite also working a full-time paid job.  

A huge thanks also goes to all our regular customers, and our donators.  Without you, the shop can't continue to do the work it does and help people who need assistance.

So, I think that's just about it for 2010.  We will be open this week from 10am to 4pm and back as usual in the New Year after the Public Holidays.  

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

- Alani