Swap-o-rama 2011

Saturday was my favorite event of the year in Vancouver - Swap-o-rama-rama!

This is my fourth year helping out, this time as the volunteer coordinator. I'm happy to use my time to help, I think this event is fantastic.

It's part giant clothing swap and part crafty/diy party. You bring your unwanted clothes, pay a small admission fee, and you get to hunt through the piles and take as much as you want. Then there are sewing stations and screen printing stations where you can experiment with refashioning your new finds to make them better. People are a lot more open to experimenting on clothes they just found and didn't have to pay for, so there's usually some fun stuff going on in the crafting rooms.

Spool of Thread, Vancouver's sewing lounge, was running the sewing room, and they were getting people who had never sewn before to work some magic on their new clothing finds.

It's really fantastic to see people willing to give something new a try.

I got lucky with a crew of fabulous volunteers who signed up to help and were willing to do whatever needed to be done. Great volunteers make everything super easy for me.

The event went really well. I was busy, but still managed to find some great new clothes, as always. I hope everyone else refreshed their wardrobes too. :)

And, at the end, all the leftover clothes get donated to charity so it's a win-win-win situation. Swap-o-rama-rama happens in city's all over the place - and if it doesn't happen in your city, maybe you're the person that needs to change that!