Blogger Charity Shop Challenge with Enable Ireland

Hello everyone,

Hope you are all having a relaxing Sunday! :) It is officially 2 WEEKS until Christmas ahhh! Christmas is without a doubt my favourite time of the year. Plenty of eating (nothing new there), reuniting with friends, nights out, nights in watching some films and general all round festiveness!

One thing I am beyond excited about is the fact I finish early on Christmas Eve. Last year, I was working until midnight so I missed everything and then fell asleep at the table during Christmas dinner because I was that tired. This year I can spend it with my family and that's what it is all about.

As you will see from the above image, I am talking about a wonderful charity in this post, Enable Ireland. I teamed up with them to take part in their Blogger's Style Challenge which was so much fun. I jumped at the opportunity because styling is my number 1 passion and it is the route I would like to take career wise. 

For those of you who aren't familiar with Enable Ireland, they are a self-funded organisation who help children and adults with disabilities. The focus is on the person and not the disability and they provide free services to children and adults with disabilities and their families. Covering childhood to adulthood their expert teams work with the individual and their family on a plan for each life stage. Their services for children and their families cover all aspects of a child's physical, educational and social development, independent living, supported employment and social and leisure activities.

One thing I wasn't aware of is that Enable Ireland have teamed up with TK Maxx and here you can drop off your unwanted clothing, accessories and household items. They collect all year round and each bag you drop in is then sent to an Enable Ireland store where the items are sold. In turn, this helps raise vital funds that are needed and I don't know about anyone else, but I love knowing that my unwanted items are being put to good use. The project has been running since 1997 and so far has raised over €1.6 million which is amazing! If you would like to contribute, get yourself a big black bag and put anything from clothes, dresses, tops, CD's, books, cushions, shoes, bags, belts etc into it and drop it into your nearest store. Each bag could raise up to €20 if not more and as Tesco says, Every Little Helps! :) 

Enable Ireland have 21 stores throughout Ireland and below you can find your nearest one. I was amazed at the variety, quality and designer labels that were on offer. Their stores have been known to sell second hand Vivienne Westwood, Chanel and Louis Copeland aswell as many other designers. For me that is the perfect combo - being able to purchase your designer goods at a fraction of the price whilst also contributing to a self funded organisation.

When I took part in the challenge, I was given a €40 budget to style 2 looks of my choice. I didn't have a particular theme that I wanted to focus on so I chose a few pieces that would be staples in my wardrobe. I went to their store on Capel Street and after a quick chat and cup of tea with everyone, I got stuck into rummaging through all of the rails. I ended up choosing an oversized camel vintage coat, monochrome handbag, royal blue dress which is from the Savida range in Dunnes Stores and a denim silk effect shirt which is my favourite item!I had tried on so many different pieces but decided to go with these as I know I will gets lots of wear out of them and below you can see the styling,

As you can tell, you don't have to spend a fortune to put a nice outfit together. A few personal tips for charity shop browsing would be:

1. Have patience - the items won't be sitting in front of you so you have to be prepared to rummage!

2. Even if the item is a size or two too big, just remember that almost everything can be altered

3. Look at the bigger picture - think of a few items in your wardrobe that it will go with

4. Have fun! The best thing about this type of shopping is you never know what you will come across and more than likely, you will be the only person to have the item as there is very rarely 2 of everything.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Bernie for asking me to take part in the challenge. I had so much fun and it was a pleasure working with you. Also to Deirdre who is now travelling the world (not jealous at all) and I hope you are having an amazing time!! :)

Talk soon,

Emma

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