ditzahdancer

Fringing ,chiffons ,motifs ,silver or gold lurex thread for in overlocker , really hard to find in New Zealand especially enough to make 3 or so costumes at a time.Any old beaded belts for recycling? I live at the bum end of the world ,pity me. There's bugger all shopping down here.

Babylonia

That's why I love the internet, although I don't know what your s&h charges would be for Aoteoroa(hope I spelled right). I also hear that scouring thrift stores for old evening, prom, bridesmaids dresses is a good way to get glitzy fabrics for reconstruction. Good luck, have fun sewing and happy dancing.

Salome

Boy where were you last year! I ended up just leaving several bedlah sets at various contracts overseas because they were worn out and ready to be retired plus my bags were overweight with new stuff so there was no dragging them home. I did manage to take two though, a white one and red and gold... I don't know if I want to part with the red and gold but the white one is possible if that is a color you would want.

Aniseteph

I don't know if you have what Babylonia calls thrift shops (charity shops in the UK) - old evening dresses and large sizes of skirts and tops can be a great source of fabric and trim, often in more interesting colours than you can buy by the metre, and very cheap. You do have to rummage through the dross though, and risk getting addicted to checking them out everytime you go past just in case there's something useful...

Otherwise: Internet! eBay can be very useful. I've ordered trims and coins from the USA when I couldn't find what I wanted locally. Not so keen on buying fabric though as IMO you need to have a feel of it first. For the lighter items that can be stuffed in an envelope it shouldn't cost much to post - you could get yards of those unstretchy strung sequins in a big padded envelope. Airmail from the USA to the UK is very reasonable so I don't see why it should be that much more to NZ (but always check the postage before bidding though, some people charge excessive P&P). Surface mail is really cheap, but it takes forever.

There are also bellydance sites that sell stuff like the long heavy beaded fringing. I've no experience of any of these but imagine the postage would be quite a lot!

And if you can't find a belt for recycling, making a belt base isn't too difficult (not compared to covering a bra. Actually most things aren't too difficult compared to covering a bra...). I think Shira's site has instructions from The Costume Goddess.

Good luck,
A xx