Ch Ch Ch Ch Chaaanges

Can you guess where I am going with this David Bowie reference?

Changing Room!
We have one.
3 items in the changing room at that time please (4 or 5 if ask nicely)

 

Chair (with a cushion!), lights, magazines and sunflowers. What more do you need?

 

 

 



It is big enough to accommodate a wheelchair or a buggy or a cete of Badgers.

You can also pick up some of our Trinity Hospice Events leaflets from our changing room.

And I can't leave without a bit of Bowie now. Love that man.
- Gone for the live version from Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

If only we could get a donation of a jacket like his in this. Those shoulder pads are EPIC....

Bye for now
BG

Aspinal of London Wallet

This beautiful red leather wallet is our star donation of the day

This is brand new from Aspinal of London and boxed (although it isn't the box it came in....)

 

Brand New Aspinal of London Leather Wallet

 

My favourite colour and smells delicious - everyone loves the smell of leather, yes?
Embossed in gold lettering.

For sale at £45.

 

 

Bye for now

BG

Susannah Hall Tailors

Susannah Hall Tailors joins forces with Trinity Hospice

(Another non direct Brook Green shop post but hey, it's Friday and I'm a maverick)

We need more lovely things like this to happen for Trinity Hospice! What a great idea and many thanks.

Please read the link - How and Why they are helping out Trinity Hospice. Read it as it will save a lot of cutting and pasting

If there are any local companies in the Brook Green / Hammersmith / Shepherds Bush area who wish to do something similar or have other ideas to help us out, please email at brookgreenshop@trinityhospice.org.uk


Bye for now
BG

Bring in your Bling!

Another donation plea.

We sell a lot of jewellery. Mainly costume, but occasionally we have gold and silver, and sometimes even diamonds!
Not that we are boasting (well maybe a little bit....) but now we are running desperately low on jewels.

Any necklaces, bracelets, rings and even earrings you no longer wear, please don't throw them away, but bring them into us during shop opening hours (Mon to Sat 10 - 6, Sun 11 - 4) and we will gladly take them off your hands.
We would love it even more if you Gift Aid your donation. When you come in with your fabulous donation, there is a quick form we get you fill out and voila. That is all you have to do. For 2 mins on your time we can raise even more money for Trinity Hospice! Brilliant!

Men! Don't think you can get away with ignoring this plea.
Watches, bracelets, necklaces and cufflinks.
Cufflinks. The rarest of the rare. Something we are always asked for, yet hardly ever have. This makes us sad. Your unwanted cufflinks could make one Brook Green charity shop very happy indeed.

As much as we love donations, please do think about what you give. Broken jewellery or odd earrings are not really much good to us (unless it's gold....mmmm gold. Shiny)

Thank you very much

Bye for now
BG

Showing off

Just a post to show off how the shop looks! Admire Brook Green!
(and to show off the new display cabinet....if only I could work out how to put the doors on. Should be so easy but....) 

New items go out everyday so it is always changing, but we always try to keep it tidy!

Making sure old stock gets sold or sent to other shops after 2 weeks on sale, so we can fill up with lovely new stock is a constant job, but without doing it we wouldn't get the lovely regular customers we have. Who wants to come into a shop and see the same things every time?! With donations coming in everyday (Thank you so much!) we don't have the space to hoard it away, so out it goes for sale.

COME IN AND BUY IT ALL!!! please.

(Disclaimer - These photos have been taken either aaaaaaaaaages ago or within a few days of each other, so you might see a few 'repeat' items)

   

Check out the new cabinet! Horrah! It fits somewhere! Totally worth the hours and hours of moving.
See All Change blog....

Bye for now

BG

La La La Lalique

We do get some lovely, if crazy interesting pieces donated sometimes.
Today we have some Lalique.

René Jules Lalique  was a French glass designer known for his creations of glass art, perfume bottles, vases, jewellery, chandeliers, clocks and automobile hood ornaments. In the 1920s, he became noted for his work in the Art Deco style

Sadly it's not jewellery or a vase, but it is what you have always wanted...

Who doesn't own a knife-holder?!

They are beautiful though. Catches the light brilliantly.

Lalique for £20

I would put them on a window sill or somewhere where the sun would shine though and make patterns
(just like that scene in the film Pollyanna with Hayley Mills, and the crystals from the lampshade where they make rainbows....you know the one I mean? I loved that film. So schmaltzy)





Bye for now
BG

All Change

Today has been a day of rearranging the shop, after we had a brilliant donation from Robert James Sound and Vision of an unwanted display cabinet.

Trying to find the best place where we can make use of it was fun (!). 2+ hours of moving, changing minds and then changing them back again, along with cleaning a plenty. AND of course this was when most of the customers decided to come in and browse and spend! Luckily the Tuesday manly men volunteer team of Pat and Joshua were on hand to assist.

Photos to follow once it is filled with goodies, and it's position is cemented in (still deciding exactly if I like it where it is....trial and error....)

Still it's cup of tea and a slice of cake time now.

Bye for now
BG

Take a walk on the Wildside....

Of course you all guessed it.
Animal Print!

I love a bit of Leopard print myself (might be the Essex girl in me trying to come out) and whenever we do prints in the window things sell pretty quick, which is the whole idea in the first place!

Calvin Klein Men's shoes £50

It was the Calvin Klein shoes which started the ball rolling and then we got these awesome shoes in. All of which I LOVE. Really wanted the zebra heeled boots, but alas, wrong size (as ever!).

Boots £20, Leopard KG £15, Glitter heels £16

Found some lovely glam print dresses and a brand new Ted Baker men's suit for £100 and voila. Brook Green has gone all jungle. *cue urban jungle references*

I think these 2 outfits below, are my faves and with the (new) snake print dress at a bargain £16 and the leather belt £10, that's a great summer look for under £30. Can't go wrong!

In the words of Lou Reed - "So hey babe, take walk on the wildside, do do do do doodoo...."

Bye for now
BG

Guessing Games

Can you guess what theme our window has been dressed for this week?
I'll give you some clues....

1. It is my favourite print

2. Back in the day it was a sign of wealth and status and luxury

3. (Double clue here)

4. and this is in my head - Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doodoo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doodoo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doodoo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo....

All will be revealed later today

Bye for now

BG

Trinity Hospice & Ebay

Not entirely about Brook Green, but as it is all to do with raising money, I shall share with you all, as I'm kind like that.

Trinity Hospice Shops has their own ebay account.
New items and excess stock from various shops go there and of course if Joe Bloggs wants to donate a % of his own ebay sales to Trinity Hospice he can. (What a kind fella Joe Bloggs is!)

As I said, this is nothing to do with Brook Green directly so for the moment we don't have any of our stock on there, but I am working on that! We want to sell to the world (and complete it with world domination!!! *cue evil manic laugh*)

Trinity Hospice EBAY account here

Bye for now
BG

Excited for Eurovision!

It's that time of the year, where lack of musical taste and block voting invades everyones tellybox.
IT'S EUROVISION TIME!
(can you tell we are excited?!)

Eurovision is that program where you get to point and laugh and wonder "What the hell was THAT country thinking? What did s/he sing? And what on earth are they wearing?!"

Eurovision parties are the new thing to have. Gather everyone about your tellybox and eat food from the participating countries, drink whenever the good ol' voting gets predictable - If Cyprus gives Greece 12 points you have to down it - or when someone says "We loved the show" when giving the points, and just have a damn good time.

So, we at Brook Green couldn't miss out on all the fun, so why not buy these Eurovision tunes?

Euro 2003 - Who can forget Jemini getting NUL POINTS for UK?

Or cover yourself in sequins like most of the performers.... (I do hope some fella gets to wear a sequin suit. My eyes love it)

Gold top £6 Blue top £3

Or wear some funky headwear....



This could be yours for 50p!

All dressed up for Eurovision!


Finally, For those people not accustomed to Eurovision (not sure if you are lucky or not), Here are some videos of the good, the bad, and the WHAT?
The Good - 2006 WINNER - Finland (this could also be under the WHAT? one, but this was bloody awesome. Well done Finland.)

The Bad - 2006 - UK (oh UK I was so ashamed....TERRIBLE! Actually don't watch it. It's just so very bad)



 THE WHAT?! - 1979 - Germany (fast forward to 1min 22secs)

Bet that one gets stuck in your head....


Bye for now
BG

Window Shopping....

The windows are possibly one of the most important areas of the Brook Green Shop. It is our advertisement for our stock and the best way to 'show off' and tempt in customers.

It's not easy to change the windows as often as we like, seeing as we never know what stock is coming in each day, we try to do something new at least every 3 days.

So here are some past window displays for you to take a gander at
Sorry for such rubbish photos, but our windows are so clean and shiny there is always glare/reflection....



The 3 P's - Pink, Purple and Peach

Unlike some Charity shops we sell from the window, so if you see anything you like, pop in and buy.

Orange and Gold

 

Plus it gives us a challenge to change the window and still have a theme/ keep it matching!

Every Monday is Window day, and we have some regular customers which make a point of coming in to see what we come up with.
The window is changed by the lovely volunteer Kat, who has a great eye for colour, with a little bit of input from the shop manager.

We do have a male dummy on our side window before anyone says we are sexist, so we will make a point of doing a MAN blog post soon. Promise.

Christmas 2011

Bye for now
BG



It's Your Round

We love to get interesting, different and one off donations and the item of the day today is this piece of Victoriana.

Make Mine A Pint

Donated by one of our lovely regular customers, this is over 100 years old! History in your hands.




Victorian Tankard


Although we wouldn't recommend drinking out of it, it would be a lovely addition to any kitchen /dinning room /bar /window sill....

 

For £28 is could be yours!

And as I've had this in my head since typing the word Victoriana, enjoy...

(also referring back to our earlier blog, where I mentioned Nietzsche and AC/DC, if you have any Kinks* CDs you no longer want, bring them in to us. WE NEED CDs! Please.)

*any band will do to be honest


Bye for now
BG

"Without Music, Life would be a mistake"

Well, that's what Friedrich Nietzsche tells us in Twilight of the Idols.
Not that we want to get too highbrow here (yes we totally googled for that quote. Who has read Nietzsche,...really?), but he does have a point.
Music is everywhere now and we want some!

We are in desperate need of CDs and interesting records (please not Perry Como or Blah does Blah in the style of Blah. Not that there is anything wrong with them, but we have plenty already. Alan Smith plays Showtunes with Bagpipes, anyone?)

So, in the words of AC/DC, For those about to rock, we salute you (but please share the love and bring in some music to our shop!)

All genres welcome, but please no scratched ones, or cheeky homemade ones*

*yes believe it or not, they do get donated and it costs us to dispose of them so please don't do it.

Bye for now
BG

Get ready for the British Summer....

....and buy some Knitwear!



Per Una Jumper £3

We all know how rubbish the British weather is. It is the one thing we can all talk about. It is probably one of the main topics of conversation with our customers, so we at Brook Green like to be ready for all possible weathers.
Where else other then the humble charity shop can you buy skis and weatherproof jackets at the same time as bikinis and vest tops? (except maybe the internet, but that doesn't count...)

Of course we change the shop around for each season, but knowing the summer weather and what customers want/need to buy we still sneak out some winter warmth. Going on a skiing holiday in June?, or has a monsoon just cracked open the storm clouds?, pop in to see us, as unlike those designer or high street shops we are not forced to be seasonally stocked. Anything goes!
(Although in saying that we are not totally silly and so store winter items away for winter in the summer and summery summer items away in the winter. We are just like boy scouts. Prepared. Just in case the weather turns)

Why not try this bright wide necked jumper?



Asos wool Jumper £5

Or this funky Tsumori Chisato jumper for a bargain £20 (which if it was my size I would totally buy!)

We also have various hats, gloves and scarves instore, so please pop in and get ready for summer!

Bye for now
BG

And so it begins....

Halfway between Hammersmith and Shepherds Bush, exists Brook Green's best kept secret. Trinity Hospice's shop at 84 Shepherds Bush Road, W6 7PD, is full of anything and everything people can donate!

This first blog is to introduce you to our shop and Trinity Hospice, but we hope to introduce you to staff and volunteers, show stock and the interesting, unusual and exciting donations.

The Brook Green store has a loyal and generous local community providing high quality regular donations of pre-owned stock - clean, high quality merchandise.

This means new stock all the time and designer labels at accessible prices.

For shopping that wont break the bank and knowing you are helping to support Trinity Hospice, we have the most amazing new and nearly new designer and vintage bargains. Search out our donated designer labels from brands like Paul Smith, Kenzo, Prada, Miu Miu, Diane Von Furstenburg, Chloe, Hugo Boss, and Armani and many others!

We carry woman's wear and menswear, accessories, home ware, art,  books - including 1st editions and collectables, music and children's clothes and toys.  New stock goes out everyday so you never know what you might find....



We rely on donations and so there may be some blog pleas on occasion, but we do ask nicely!  When stock is donated we would love everyone to sign up to Gift Aid. It only works if you are a UK Taxpayer, but it really helps us as it increases the value of your donation at no cost to you.  Gift Aid now adds 25% to the value of the goods you donate to Trinity.
The important information here explains all. It might not sound a lot (25p extra for £1) but it all adds up!


 
This blog is here to raise the profile of the Trinity Hospice charity so please feel free to use the comments section to express an interest in your favourite items and support
Trinity Hospice (or find them on twitter or facebook)

Trinity provides skilled, compassionate end of life care to individuals and support for families in our central and south west London community.  All our patient and family services are free of charge.  Our services include nursing and medical care, counselling and practical support, welfare advice, occupational and physiotherapy, complementary therapies, creative activities and bereavement care.  It costs £9.6 million each year to maintain Trinity’s services but less than a third of our funding comes from the NHS. We depend on the support of our local community in the form of donations, fundraising and legacies to continue our work. 

Trinity Hospice History



And so the Brook Green Shop Blog begins....