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Looking for some baubles to go with late-summer outfits or help usher your wardrobe into early fall? Don’t want to drop a ton of cash?

The Heart of Living Home Gallery is hosting a once-yearly event this month at which shoppers can buy gemstone jewelry at warehouse prices.

The sale, which runs from Aug. 24 to Aug. 29, will include custom-made gemstone pieces, special orders, overstocks and one-of-a-kind pieces from KDI Designs . Greensboro-based KDI typically makes and markets jewelry for mail-order catalogues, boutiques and the QVC home-shopping network.

While shopping the sale, visitors also can check out a show of Russian paintings . Works by nine artists will be selling at 40 percent off the gallery prices from Aug. 21 to Sept. 8 .

Shoppers can visit the gallery, in the Home Design Emporium at New Garden Village , between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For details, call Heart of Living at 662-0023 .

Turnover for Mattress Man

Bid goodbye to the Mattress Man.

The four-store Greensboro-based chain has been tucked into Mattress Firm, the Houston-based specialty mattress company. Details of the sale, which took place in early August, were not disclosed.

Mattress Firm already had a handful of Triad stores before buying its local competitor. But the mega-mattress company doesn’t plan to bulk up its local presence much. Mattress Firm has closed three of the four former Mattress Man locations.

The fourth, at Wendover Place shopping center, is becoming a Mattress Firm store. It should reopen under the new name early this week , a spokesman for the company said.

Joe’s grows N.C. trade area

Trader Joe’s still hasn’t made its way to the Triad. But the California grocer with the cult following is getting closer.

The chain announced plans recently to open a store in Chapel Hill, at Eastgate Shopping Center on East Franklin Street, before the end of this year.

The center, once home to specialty foods retailer A Southern Season (which relocated nearby) and recently vacated by Earth Fare (which left the market, unable to compete with nearby Whole Foods and local co-op grocers), is a logical choice for Trader Joe’s which goes for smaller spaces than traditional grocers.

Rumors abound that the chain also is eyeing locations in Raleigh and continues to consider spots in Greensboro. But Trader Joe’s, a privately held company, maintains that the Triad is not in its two-year plan for new store openings.

The grocer opened its first N.C. store in Cary last year. And the first of two planned stores in Charlotte is slated to open Friday .

Friendly kicks off drawing

As part of its anniversary celebration, Friendly Center is offering a major promotion and drawing starting today.

Until Aug. 31 , shoppers can register to win prizes such as:

* $100 gift certificates from Carlyle & Co., Harper’s Restaurant, Leon’s Style Salon, GameStop and Toys & Co.

* An 18-carat gold ring with diamond baguettes, valued at $1,895, from Schiffman’s Jewelers.

* An 18-inch Akoya pearl necklace from Belk.

* A Friendly Center shopping spree that includes a gift certificate for $1,957 (the amount corresponds to the year the center opened) and one night at the O. Henry Hotel.

A number of other retailers and restaurants also are taking part. Visit individual stores and eateries to find out what they’re offering and to register. Winners will be notified starting Sept. 4, after a drawing.

Rite Aid to add mini-stores

New health supplements and vitamins could pop up at your local drugstore during the next few years.

Rite Aid, a new player in this market, plans to open 1,125 GNC LiveWell mini-stores in its drugstores by 2014. Another 250 of these small supplement stores could open in Rite Aids across the country by 2019, if the companies continue to grow their partnership.

That’s news for Triad shoppers, who saw the first local Rite Aid open this summer in place of a former Eckerd drugstore in Kernersville. Rite Aid picked up 46 Eckerd stores in the Triad in June, as part of a purchase of 1,850 Brooks and Eckerd stores and six distribution centers in 18 states.

Rite Aid is still remodeling and putting its name on Eckerd stores here. And some of these stores could be contenders for the GNC mini-stores, said Jody Cook, a spokeswoman for Rite Aid. The company has not announced locations or opening dates for the mini-stores.

These GNC shops are nooks lined with shelves of vitamins and jars of powders and pills. In traditional Rite Aid stores, the GNC outposts are located near the pharmacy.

It’s unlikely that shoppers who live near an existing GNC will see a mini-store at their local Rite Aid, Cook said. The Pennsylvania-based specialty retailer has supplement stores throughout the Triad, including at Friendly Center and Four Seasons Town Centre.

Do you have retail news for Michelle Jarboe? Call 373-7075 or send e-mail to mjarboe@news-record.com