The Thrifty HoG: A Golden Find in the Flat Iron District

On a recent business trip to New York City, I was wandering through the Flat Iron District, making my way to Penn Station. I turned down 25th street onto the block behind the office where I used to work, and made a wonderful find. The Thrify HoG’s bright and cheerful window display caught my eye, and welcomed me to enter the store. Once inside, I beheld an airy and beautifully colorful boutique, which belied the fact that it was a “thrift shop.”

There was a huge array of chic, gently-used men’s, women’s and children’s clothing and accessories, as well as books, home décor, and small home furnishings. Each and every item was obviously very carefully chosen since they were all in impeccable condition. And by the cash register sat a big golden piggy bank along with brochures and cards for Hearts of Gold, a non-profit that was benefitted by the sales from The Thrifty HoG. I asked the woman who was tending the store to tell me a bit more about the relationship between the two.

As it turned out, the woman with whom I was speaking was Deb Koenigsberger, founder of Hearts of Gold and creator of The Thrifty HoG shop. Deb had founded Hearts of Gold in 1996 to help homeless mothers develop sustainable change in their lives. In addition to providing many programs and services through Hearts of Gold, she had opened The Thrifty HoG in May 2010 to provide job opportunities and job training to the moms. Net proceeds from the shop go to support Hearts of Gold programs. What a wonderful concept!

In reading through their brochure, and their website, I saw that there are many ways to support this great organization. They hold fundraisers throughout the year, and you can shop guilt-free at their store at 11 West 25th Street. For those of you who don’t live in the New York City area, they have an online shop. To learn more about Hearts of Gold and The Thrifty HoG, check out their website.

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Miss ShoeBooty

The following post is by guest blogger, Kia Guarino.

After coming across a fun website with detailed instructions yesterday, we decided to use old wool sweaters to make boots! The slouchy sweater material boot is in style – UGG® makes a few cute designs. However, my budget currently doesn’t allow for purchases in that price range, so we decided to make our own following the directions provided by Urban Threads. The Urban Threads site is mostly focused on embroidery and the boots she made had an adorable embroidered emblem. However, given our inexperience and impatience with sewing machines, we decided to skip that part and just add buttons for embellishment.

We started out by going to Target and picking out cheap flats (mine were a large kids’ shoe) and then to Michaels craft store to pick up a little glue gun. All in all, it cost a total of about $14: $6 for the wool sweater (found at Goodwill),$3 for the pair of flats, $2 for buttons (which we had on hand from a past visit to The Button Emporium in Portland, OR), and $3 for the glue gun. I picked out a cranberry red wool sweater and my mom chose a dark gray ribbed sweater.

Following the directions, we made it pretty seamlessly through the first part. There was a little glue showing on the rubber soles and my sewing was a little lumpy, but overall nothing too horrible. We did have trouble figuring out the last step when the cuff has to be attached, but after a few snafus, we were able to figure that out as well!

In the end, after about 3 hours of manual labor and some trial and error, we produced our very own wool boots!! The cost was much lower than the department store versions, plus they are custom fit!! Since we are both petite, this was a huge bonus. I definitely recommend trying this out, even if you aren’t skilled at sewing, especially if you have an old sweater and pair of flats that you’d like to repurpose!