Ribbon resources

The other day I went to Artistic Ribbon, a wholesaler of all kinds of ribbon. I've been wanting to go for a while but never got a chance because they're not open on the weekends and they close before 5pm. So on Monday I took off half a day from work to run all sorts of errands, including getting ribbon. I imagined that it would be like a store where you can peruse the aisles or look at neatly displayed samples. Instead, it was on the third floor of an office building and right when I got off the elevator there, I was met with a window where a woman asked what I needed. When I explained that I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted but needed to see what the stuff looks like in person, she rang me through the door and I went inside their cavernous space of tall shelves stacked with boxes. I knew that I wanted something fairly narrow, like 1/4" or 3/8" which was good b/c she didn't have much in those sizes so I didn't have a huge selection to sift through (I hate making decisions!). She showed me a booklet of some satin ribbons, then a box of some sheer. Of course I had issues deciding but she was quite patient with me, fetching roll after roll, checking prices for me, opening the rolls up so that I could compare textures and colors and also match it against my invite. I finally settled on a cream colored sheer ribbon. They only sell rolls (not by the yard) of ribbon so I got one 100 yard roll and it was less than $8, with no tax! Granted, this was a cheaper quality ribbon, but it is still a great price (they had $16 chiffon ribbon from France which was reaaally nice but not for my purposes b/c it was not stiff enough).

All in all, I think Artistic is a great place to go if you need a lot of ribbon and want to see what it looks like in person. It's even better if you know what you're looking for so you can ask for it directly instead of having them pull out box after box (their site has all their stuff online so once you narrow down your choices you can check it out in person; the website doesn't represent the textures very well). They have a huge selection and their prices are decent, however, I noticed that Paper Mart also sells ribbon for a much lower price (but with shipping, I think it turns out to be about the same). I've never ordered from Paper Mart, but it seems pretty popular and they sell all kinds of interesting stuff in bulk too. Of course, there's always M & J Trimming in the Garment District, where you can buy ribbon by the yard and all kinds of neat stuff, including lace, flowers, buttons. Their store is pretty cool too, if you ever need to decorate anything.