Ginny from the Blog

Clothing swaps may be the best way to revive your wardrobe on a budget. I can’t believe I’ve never been to one given how much I love thrifting. And it looks like I won’t even get to make it to the next major exchange in the Triangle.

My beloved Scrap Exchange is hosting a clothing swap Saturday at Marbles Museum in Raleigh. “The Swap-O-Rama-Rama” is designed to promote creativity over consumerism. To hit that point home, they’ll have sewing stations set up around the event with designers to help you transform your new finds into something new-to-you.

Here’s how it works:

Participants bring unwanted clothing and accessories and the core of the swap is the gigantic piles of free clothing sorted into categories: pants, shirts, skirts, sweaters etc. These piles are the collective total of each participant’s contribution of one bag of unwanted clothes. Take home as much clothing as you can carry. Remainders go to Retails Thrift Store in Raleigh.

So, now for the bummer. I plan to be at the beach this weekend, so I won’t be able to swap my duds. Damn!

But please go for me and bring the whole family. The Scrap Exchange press release says the event is for women, men and children! It’s the seventh swap the Scrap Exchange has put on, so I’m guessing it’s probably pretty well-organized (look at the photo provided by Scrap Exchange executive director Ann Woodward for proof).

There’s a suggested $10 donation (kids are free though), but the Scrap Exchange is a non-profit, so if they make any money from the event, you can bet it’s going to a good cause. The event runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday Sept. 5.

Let me know if you score any fab finds.

A place worth checking out in Durham is the Scrap Exchange. It’s a nonprofit that sells the most random stuff that factories and businesses probably would have thrown away. Instead of going to the landfill, Scrap Exchange volunteers pick up the eclectic materials and take them to the the nonprofit’s 13,000-square-foot warehouse in downtown Durham.

If you have a penchant for exploring, it’s easy to spend hours in there on your first trip. Blue barrels line the front of the store and are filled with everything from puzzle pieces to leftover lapel pins. There’s also an art gallery that always features unique pieces. The latest exhibit is the $20 art show, where everything in the gallery is for sale for $20.

At NBC17, our reporters have been exploring ways to save money, something we’re all trying to do a little bit more of given the increase in gas and food prices. I told our news director how rad the Scrap Exchange is, so he sent me there with a photographer, who helped me put together my first-ever package for TV. I also took my own camera and produced a story for Durham.MyNC.com, a community news site that our station also produces. Here’s the resulting video or you can read the full story here.

I’ve asked some of you this before, but what are some of your favorite places in Durham (or around the Triangle for that matter) where you can spend a lot of time without spending a lot of money? Who knows, maybe I’ll have a chance to feature it.