Yearly Archives: 2013

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Burlap and Berries

. Christmas . , , , ,

ImageA year ago my husband and I bought our country vacation home in Kansas, a dream we have had for years. In just a few short weeks we will be hosting the first large family Christmas gathering in the house. Wanting it to be very festive but on a budget I went to work.

I love all things rustic and vintage. In order to save money I looked around the house for things that I have and could use as part of the décor. Then a trip or two to arc Thrift was in order. Trying to add a touch of Christmas to every room in the house would be the challenge.

Some of the ordinary things I gathered up included mason jars, cookie cutters, red bandanas, vintage red pyrex pieces, galvanized and metal containers of all sizes and old Christmas light bulbs. On hand I also had craft paint, raffia, miscellaneous wood letters and an assortment of ribbon and Christmas ornaments.

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In the kitchen cookie cutters and some gingham check ribbon added a little touch of Christmas to the cabinet handles. Adding red towels also added pop and a Christmas feel.

The hutch in the dining room was super fun to pull together. My dinnerware is an assortment of different patterns but all white. It’s so easy to change the look of the table with white as the anchor. I added a few vintage red pyrex serving pieces and bake ware. White hobnail candy dishes, 50’s era Christmas angels and some ornaments gave it a festive look. Using cotton kitchen towels as napkins, placemats or runners is another great way to save a few dollars.

On the mantle candle holders were given a touch of Christmas being surrounded with evergreen garland and burlap ribbon. A red bead garland was taken apart and the beads used in a candle holder for a pop of color. Wooden letters were painted red and tied to the stockings with ribbon to identify which family member the stocking belonged to.

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Mason jars have been put to use in so many different ways. They make cute snow globes using epsom salt as the “snow”. You can fill them with old Christmas light bulbs, ornaments, bells or pine cones. One of my favorite uses is as luminaries. They are beautiful and very sturdy even standing up to wind.

I found so many great things at arc Thrift that helped me create a rustic and vintage Christmas in the country. Merry Christmas everyone!

 

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Decorating for Christmas a Much Needed Distraction

. Christmas . , , ,

arc is thrilled to introduce our brand new guest blogger, Lian.  Lian enjoys being thrifty and crafty as a CSU college student.  We look forward to many more ideas and great finds from her at arc Thrift Stores.

It’s finally December, and do you know means?  Well, at least for us college students it means finals and usually stress. There is one consistent way I have found to help make it all more bearable:  bringing Christmas cheer to your very own dorm room! I went over to my local Arc Thrift Store in search of such cheer.  I had some great finds such as Christmas lights, a wreath, Christmas ornaments (CSU colors, of course), some gold bows and some alphabet letters. All of these decorations only cost me $17 dollars! I had a great time crafting this stuff together while listening to Christmas music.  I proceeded to glue on the CSU letters onto my wreath and took the gold bows and glued them on as well; a very simple but festive result! After I finished, I had a grand ole time hanging all of the Christmas lights in a crisscross pattern across my ceiling and staging my homemade wreath on the outside of my door. All of a sudden, my room was now a winter wonderland!  Thanks to arc for making this cheery moment possible during a stressful time for a poor college student.

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arc Thrift Stores – Top 10 White Elephant Gifts

. Christmas . , , , , , , ,

Laughter danced through the offices at arc Thrift Stores as team members selected their top choices for the annual white elephant gift guide. Traditionally “White Elephant” gifts are items that are useless, but humorous. For the last 12 months, the marketing team at arc Thrift Stores has been collecting items that fit that bill.

Following is a preview of the 2013 “Top Ten” White Elephant gifts that are sure to be a conversation piece.

Let the gag gifting begin. Over a million other White Elephant gifts can be found in arc Thrift Stores 22 Colorado locations along with vintage Christmas treasures and “Ugly” Christmas sweaters.

About arc Thrift Stores: arc Thrift Stores http://www.arcthrift.org operates 22 thrift stores and 9 “donation stations” throughout Colorado. arc Thrift Stores provides funding to arc Chapters, which in turn provide advocacy for people with developmental disabilities. arc Thrift Stores is one of the largest employers of individuals with developmental disabilities in the state of Colorado.

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Thrifty Thanksgiving Table Decor

. DIY, Thrifty Tips

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By Stephanie May of MayDae.com

I’m so excited to be a guest blogger for the ARC this week!  I absolutely love thrifting, and on most weekends, you can find me at the ARC with a coffee in hand, grabbing treasures as fast as I can. With Thanksgiving coming up, I’m thinking about Thanksgiving decorations just as much as I’m thinking about the food.  A beautiful table makes any party or event feel fancy and special, and it doesn’t take a lot to achieve it. 

Before I went to the thrift store to pick out my supplies, I first came up with my color palette.  I chose black, white, brown, and metallic for my theme and set off looking through the store.I started thinking about a tablecloth, and I knew I wanted to do something non-traditional.  I headed over to the stationary and office supply aisle (one of my favorite sections of the store) and found black paper, brown mailing paper, a roll of wallpaper, and a really cool black and white calligraphy practice pad.

To make the table cloth, I used the back of the wallpaper as a base on the table, and then taped it on the bottom where the seam is.  I cut up the paper into squares and triangles (small, medium, and large pieces) and used plain glue to adhere them to the wallpaper.  I did some of the pieces side by side, and some of them overlapping.  This takes a little while to glue them all down, but if you have a helper or two (this is a great project for kids!) it will go very fast.  I wanted the pattern of the table to be unique and different from something that you could just buy at the store and I really like how it turned out!

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For the rest of the table, I was also able to thrift some black ribbon, white candle holders, dried white flowers, a black vase, beads and gold jewelry, black and white fabric to make napkins, and a metallic fluted pan.  I used the ribbon around the base of my wood crate, and for napkin rings.  The gold jewelry and beads were also used on the napkin rings, and I used the fluted pan and black vase to create height in the center for the dried flowers.

I hope that my table has given you some inspiration of how to use thrift store finds to decorate for the holidays!  I love that you can easily choose different colors and textures, and get a totally different feel and look.  I really enjoyed putting this together – thanks so much to the ARC for having me as a guest blogger! 🙂

www.maydae.com

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Lloyd Lewis

. Get To Know...., Our Mission . , , ,

Lloyd Lewis

“When Lloyd Lewis goes to work as president and CEO of arc Thrift Stores, he is inspired every day by his son, Kennedy, who was born in 2003 with Down Syndrome.”  Read more of the great article written by Lynn Bronikowski of ColoradoBiz Magazine.  We are proud to have such a visionary leader captaining the arc Thrift Stores ship!

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Denver Craft Ninjas: Halloween Headbands

. DIY, Halloween . , , ,

Welcome Becky from the Denver Craft Ninjas as our first Guest Blogger!  If you don’t know about the Denver Craft Ninjas, then you should!  Read on to see how you can make super cool DIY Halloween Headbands from our local craft guru……..

Don’t have time for a complete costume this year? Or can’t figure out what will pull together your delightfully frightening costume ideas?

Get together with your friends, like I did, and DIY the cutest little Halloween headbands!

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Amber and Becky (Denver Craft Ninjas) model their spooky headband creations!

Headbands are the perfect blank canvas for your costume idea. Add some plastic bones and roses, a little greenery and a red eyed raven, or tulle and spiders to create spirited accents that work perfectly on their own or as an addition to a complete costume.

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She’s Crafty! Awesome Denver Craft Ninjas Halloween craft studio.

My lovely assistant Amber and I played with a variety of materials to create three great headbands that will work for any age.

And really the materials are the best part, right?

We gathered fabric flowers, scrap fabric, and a few cheap Halloween necessities and set to work. Many of these items can be found at arc Thrift Stores!

First, is our adorable Mummy Eyes headband!

Amber whipped this super cute, asymmetrical eyed accessory up in no time.

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To start, grab a fairly wide headband and wrap with a gauzy fabric or ribbon and secure with a glue gun. Then grab some creepy, bloodshot eyeballs (we used a pre-painted foam eyeball) and glue them wherever you want on the headband. Amber decided on a crooked placement for the eyes and it minimized the ghoulish and made it a little silly. And last, Amber wrapped a little ribbon around the eyeballs.

A totally cute addition to a mummy costume or just something fun to wear all by itself!

Second, is our simple spider headband!

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With this project, we used some lavender tulle and wrapped it tightly around a thin metal headband securing it with a glue gun. We made charming tulle rosettes by gathering small pieces of tulle and then placing a dot of hot glue in the center to hold the rosette together. Be careful! The hot glue will seep through the tulle and can burn your fingers.

The tulle will naturally fan out and make whispy bases for sinister, sparkly spiders to sit on. Another small dot of glue in the center of the rosette will secure your spider to the rosette. Then decide on placement for your spider! We placed two spiders right next to each other for extra creep factor!

This is a great project to experiment with! The tulle is so fun to play with and it’s fairly easy to create a haunting veil that hangs over your face.

Our last headband turned out to be our favorite!

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Inspired by Dia de los Muertos, we created a spooky statement piece that can be worn with a whole costume or on it’s own with some really gorgeous face paint!

Using a wide, black fabric headband, we started by gluing some gold and black stretch lace to the headband to add some

In our hunt for pieces to use for these headbands, we were drawn to these lovely black leaves with purple glitter on them. PURPLE GLITTER! We took apart the leaves and placed 6 leaves, 2 at a time, in the middle and on the sides of the headband with hot glue. Then between the leaves we placed fun mini skulls which created a kind of crown. Finally, between skull and leaf we tucked little trios of mini fabric red roses. After letting the glue set on all the pieces, it’s a good idea to adjust the leaves to be sure they don’t obscure any of the other elements of the headband.

Voila! You have three great looks to jump start your costume plans!

Halloween is a great time to get your glue gun fired up and create something handmade that is as individual as you are!

Visit the Denver Craft Ninjas new craft space called Share.Denver located at 28th and Fairfax in Park Hill.

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Denver Zombie Crawl

. DIY

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Zombie lovers unite this weekend at the 8th Annual Denver Zombie Crawl!  It’s the largest zombie crawl in the world, right here in Denver, and we can’t wait to be a part of the walking dead that will take over the 16th Street Mall beginning at 2:00 PM this Saturday, October 19th.

Create a killer Zombie Costume in just a few easy steps:

1. Choose your Zombie Type:  Zombie Soccer Mom, princess, business man, ballerina, football player etc. are easy starter ideas.

2. Select your costume base: Tutus, prom dresses, business suits and athletic gear are good clothing choices but make it CHEAP because you are going to destroy the garments.

3. Zombify your costume: Grab a pair of scissors, razor blade or box cutter and get to work ripping and shredding!  Then add some fake blood (You can buy it or experiment with making your own with some corn syrup and food coloring), and rub in some dirt for a complete zombie ensemble.

4. Hair & Makeup: go simple with some Halloween grease paint makeup kits for a gory look then top it off with messy, dirty hair or an old wig that you don’t mind destroying.

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Consider arc Thrift Stores your Zombie headquarters – we are here to help you Zombify!