How do I get Steampunk clothes when I have no money?

[Anita Reyes]

I visit the flea markets(in México there are a lot) in La Lagunilla in the historical centre of the city is an street market where you can buy a lot of things from late 1800s and earlys 1900s to the last year. This is where I go but there are plenty more around the country

[annevpreussen]

I visit the flea markets(in México there are a lot) in La Lagunilla in the historical centre of the city is an street market where you can buy a lot of things from late 1800s and earlys 1900s to the last year. This is where I go but there are plenty more around the country

Wow, that's so cool! I wish there were more flea markets in my area. There's one that comes around every summer and I've found some pretty good (and weird) steamy stuff there, but I've never found anything actually antique and worth buying. Jealous!

[hbrika]

The last army surplus closed in Windsor many many years ago and the ones in London not long after. If I want WWII style boots I have to order from China??

But there is hope!
Dollar stores. I found containers with screw on metal lids with glass lenses for 1.50. Can we say steam punk googles?  I grabbed 4 of them.

I also scored tiny treasure chests that can screw onto belts. Tiny vials and test tubes. Googly eyes (that can be spray painted to look like rivets). Cheap ray guns that can be spray painted with bronze direct to plastic paint (Tremclad or Rustoleaum). Little butterflies and feathers to decorate hats.
Plastic safety goggles – that I am going to glue the screw on metal lids to. Greeblies to adorn my creations. Metal containers with glass windows make great tincture vials and so on…

The store I use is Dollarama in Canada and they are in every city and in most major towns.
Heck they even have vintage looking lightbulbs and wacky solar lights that can be repurposed.

[J. Wilhelm]

I visit the flea markets(in México there are a lot) in La Lagunilla in the historical centre of the city is an street market where you can buy a lot of things from late 1800s and earlys 1900s to the last year. This is where I go but there are plenty more around the country

Wow, that's so cool! I wish there were more flea markets in my area. There's one that comes around every summer and I've found some pretty good (and weird) steamy stuff there, but I've never found anything actually antique and worth buying. Jealous!

Ha! La Lagunilla: I haven't heard that name for nearly 40 years! I wasn't a Steampunk back then when I was living in Mexico City. The trip downtown was more of a long trek though (and I didn't drive back then)...

La Lagunilla Market in Mexico City's Historic Centre is actually 5 different markets in one place
The market is a descendant of the Aztec's city market when the city was named Tenochtitlan.

No translation necessary

Los secretos de La Lagunilla

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwIzgiMurVY

[Miranda.T]

The last army surplus closed in Windsor many many years ago and the ones in London not long after. If I want WWII style boots I have to order from China??

But there is hope!
Dollar stores. I found containers with screw on metal lids with glass lenses for 1.50. Can we say steam punk googles?  I grabbed 4 of them.

I also scored tiny treasure chests that can screw onto belts. Tiny vials and test tubes. Googly eyes (that can be spray painted to look like rivets). Cheap ray guns that can be spray painted with bronze direct to plastic paint (Tremclad or Rustoleaum). Little butterflies and feathers to decorate hats.
Plastic safety goggles – that I am going to glue the screw on metal lids to. Greeblies to adorn my creations. Metal containers with glass windows make great tincture vials and so on…

The store I use is Dollarama in Canada and they are in every city and in most major towns.
Heck they even have vintage looking lightbulbs and wacky solar lights that can be repurposed.

Now those are a great set of ideas. Please do post, as and when, pictures of your creations with these.

Yours,
Miranda.

[Kensington Locke]

instead of painting googly eyes to look like rivets, go buy some of those brass fold-over tacks (like for holding three-ring binder punched paper sans binder from an office supply store.

They're cheap, and actually made of the stuff you're trying to paint plastic to look like

[frances]

paper fasteners

[Lepidoptera]

Also called brads. I used them a couple of years ago when making my granddaughter a cosplay of a Dragonborn for that very purpose.