Do you have any recommendations for obtaining lace? Obviously a lot of lolita stuff requires like 20 gazillion yards of lace trim, but it’s so goddamn expensive idk how people manage it. Not to mention a lot of times I’ve noticed at Joann’s they only have weirdly short rolls (??? terminology?) so it’s like, here, you get 5 feet for $20 have fun

20dollarlolita:

One of these days I’m going to go through the blog and properly tag all of the lace posts so that you can search them.

But, to quote my third-favorite Samuel Beckett play,

“We should go.”
(They do not move.)

So, first things first, when Dharma Trading made it look like they were going to stop carrying their dyeable lace a few months ago, I panicked, but they have restocked! So here’s my favorite place for cheap lolita lace. It’s all cluny lace, which is really good for some substyles and sort of okay for others. They only have a 3 yard minimum, too, which is much less than other places. If you’re not dyeing it, you definitely want to pour some boiling water over it and let it shrink before you sew it on, because it does shrink. Their lace is also highly dyeable and you can dye it in a bottle really easily, so it’s SUPER versatile

Cheeptrims has good venise lace, but their minimum is one putup, which can be 15-70 yards depending on the trim. This means you need to fork over $20 for a spool and then figure out how you can use the cute lace up. This is handy if you’re making a mini-collection or if you have a lot of space and a big desire to keep lace on hand.

As for Joann, there’s three places in my store to buy lace. There’s the by-the-spool laces (cardboard spool), which are usually 1-3yards and can go from $3-$10 for a spool. Some of these laces are usable and some aren’t. A LOT of them also are available in the by-the-yard lace, and you have to do the math to figure out which one is a better deal. The by-the-yard (plastic bolt) lace can go from $1.40ish to $18 a yard. Like most lolitas, I like to think I know more about lace than the average layman, and I cannot for the life of me figure out the pricing system on the lace. It’s just nuts.
A lot of that lace is raschel lace that we lolitas tend not to use, but there’s some cluny lace that’s under $2 a yard that sometimes floats around. By the yard lace comes in white, sort of white, kind of white, white????, black, champagne, and you-thought-this-was-black-but-now-you-got-it-cut-and-surprise!!-it’s-navy. Pull out the flashlight on your phone and check the colors. The major advantage of this is that you can feel and touch the lace. And while we’re on the subject, there’s a 40% off BTY trim coupon in the smartphone app that’s good until 3/31/18 so if you’re considering buying a lot of lace, now’s the time. (lace rarely goes on sale, however, so you can also use the standard 40/50/60% coupons that come up if you’re only buying one cut, so you’re not actually losing money if you can’t go lace shopping this weekend)
Then there’s the BUY-the-spool lace (purple cardboard rolls with the lace secured with a sinver straight pin). I swear we’re going to have a lawsuit over those things one of these days, but they’re usually $2 a spool and have varying amounts on them depending on the type of lace. If you’re going to find a real discount on lace, it’s going to be in this section. I think this section is a combination of cheap lace they keep in stock with mill ends or some bargain purchase, because there can be some cool stuff in here.

If you’ve got a spool of string and a lot of free time, you can fake your own lace.

You can also browse what comes up when you search “lace” on this blog and dive back into 20dollarlolita memory lane with all the posts from the wayback.

Where do you get your fabrics?

learning-to-sew:

Hi Anon!

I wish I could answer this better for you, but we get fabric from everywhere. When we go into the store it’s usually JoAnn’s because there are several nearby. We also check Hobby Lobby sometimes but they have a bit of a weird selection. 🙂 Hopefully we’ll get a chance to head down to a fabric warehouse near Chicago that I know about because we need some really specialized fabrics for some of our next projects! 

MOST of our fabric shopping happens online though – It’s much easier to get the color/weight you want in my opinion. We’re addicted to swatches so that we can see and touch the fabric before ordering yards and yards of it, so unless it’s a last minute costume, we do some shopping around. 🙂 

Here are a few of the pages we’ve bought fabric from/gotten swatches/maybe I was just looking at things there and we didn’t actually buy anything but I would in the future given the opportunity: 

http://www.fabric.com/

http://bigzfabric.com/

http://www.housefabric.com/

http://www.moodfabrics.com/

http://spandexworld.com/

https://www.fabricdepot.com/

http://www.warehousefabricsinc.com/

Also Ebay, Amazon, and Etsy have a lot of unique fabrics, too! Don’t count them out! 

I hope this kinda helped? We’re kinda all over the board for fabric shopping. 🙂 

HOW TO SHOP AT JO-ANN’S LIKE A BOSS

leafypeachy:

vicious-cosplay:

Since I posted this on a friends wall… I thought I’d share this with you.
This, and shopping in fashion districts, is literally how I afford to do the cosplays I do.

GETTING COUPONS

1. Sign up for the mailing list to get the physical coupons
2. Sign up for the e-mail list to get the email coupons
3. Get the smartphone app for even more coupons
4. Go to this site to get MORE coupons. This will give you another generic email coupon sometimes as well as the semi-broken mobile joanns app that has EVEN MORE coupons
5. If you’re not buying fabric or sewing notations, bring Michaels and AC Moore coupons since you can use AS MANY as those that you can use since they accept all competitor coupons

THINGS ABOUT JO-ANN COUPONS

• The mobile app for apple and droid give out different coupon codes
• Mailer coupons (like the ones with your name on it), I’ve so far noticed, have unique codes per customer
• E-mail coupons that are unique per customer if it has your name on the coupon (like mailer ones)
• The derpy mobile Jo-Ann’s app has a different code than the apple/droid mobile Jo-Ann’s
• If the code is different by 1 number, you can use both coupons in one purchase
• All Michaels and AC Moore coupons (including mobile/digital) works on all Jo-Ann’s products other than sewing stuff

RULES OF THUMB

• Jo-Anns runs 50% coupons during major holidays, two coupon commotions per year, and usually every 3 weeks otherwise
• Looking for Casa Fabric? Wait for Prom, Easter, and Christmas
• Casa Fabric I’ve noticed goes down to flat rate prices of 3.99-4.99/yrd three times a year. Want that 18/yrd fabric? Wait till its 4 bucks.
• Looking for Brocade, Unique Fabrics or Patterns? Wait for Halloween
• Brocade tends to go 50% off at least once every two months I’ve noticed
• Looking for Fleece? Wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas
• Blizzard Fleeces go on crazy sales around Black Friday, but it can be extremely hard to get it on those days so be weary
• If your fabric is on sale this week for 30% off, and you have a 50% off coupon for the next two weeks, wait for the sale to drop and pick it up with a coupon
• Patterns tend to go on sale for $1-2 every couple of weeks. It normally is a one day sale for a certain brand one week, and then a one day sale for another brand the week after. Stock up on patterns you think you may use (This is especially good around Halloween)
• Unless you’re pressed for time, always wait for the 50% off sale or the 50% off coupon
• Mobile and digital coupons are unlimited. If you’re not too far from your Jo-Ann’s you can make multiple trips
• You are more likely to get a 50% off coupon to use on non sale fabric then you are to find it on sale for more than 30% off
• If you’re shopping online and find the Teacher Discount code, you can use it without being a teacher! They can’t check online and thats an extra % off.

And my biggest rule for shopping at any craft store?

50% OFF OR BUST!

EDIT:

From Pancake Police

1. 1. If you’re a student, sign up for the Student Discount Card! When you run out of coupons, it’s nice to have this extra bonus that takes 10% off of your purchase. I believe it’s good for sale items too?
2. If you can’t find enough coupons from Joann’s, they’ll take competitor’s coupons too! (This is a little tricky— for fabric, they won’t take Michael’s or AC Moore’s because their competitors won’t sell it, but it’s good for beads, wire flowers, basically everything else. Hancock’s Fabric coupons should work for fabric, though!

From Srwar

• Not all mailer coupons have different barcodes per person, only the 40/50% off ones on the back of the mailer are different. Anything inside the mailer will be the same coupon code and thus you can’t use duplicates on the same transaction.
• Don’t be afraid to combine % off your total purchase coupons with % off items coupons. The % off your total purchase coupons will just come off of anything that the other coupons don’t apply to, including sale items. 
• Be nice to your cashier and hand them your coupons in the order that they should be scanned! Highest percentage off individual items first, moving down, and any % off total purchase coupons last. It makes your transaction faster and gets you the best deal possible. 
• Very occasionally, the notions wall and thread will all be 50% off, sometimes with a % off your total purchase coupon available simultaneously. Take advantage of these times and stock up on notions and thread! 25% off of notions already 50% off is nothing to sneeze at. (The last time this happened was New Year’s and I believe it happens at least one other time every year.)

Fantastic for those of you who have a Joanns nearby! We don’t have any here in the south 😥