Former Social Worker Finds Joy in Fabric

Lisa Paras kisses a lot of frogs to make her customers happy at on Jimmy Carter Boulevard.

Well, not really, but that’s what she calls it when she searches for and find fabrics for less and passes them on to her customers as “princes” to her clients at her popular fabric and design shop in Norcross.

“I think ‘frugal’ indicates a frame of mind,” Paras says. “It’s about spending less to get the look you want and that is totally possible, even in today’s market.”

Paras didn’t come to fabrics and design as a career choice to begin with, though. A trained clinical social worker, she was living in Miami when Hurricane Andrew came through, leaving destruction and depression in its path.

“It was overwhelming to be there, in a city that was coming apart at the seams.” She decided to try to do something else with her life, but she had no idea what that would be at the time.

After a move to Atlanta, she was sewing a lot and had been since the age of 5; leaving it behind and picking it up again as the years went on. One day, a friend made a comment about how much fabric she was buying, telling her that she ought to just go ahead and open a store if she was going to keep purchasing so much of it. So, Paras says, she did.

What started out as a 3,000-square-foot space, turned into a 15,000 square foot entity within a few years. Her customers call on her from all over the country and her clients are loyal to her.

Husbands love her, because she’s known for reigning in her lady customers by telling them that they “aren’t keeping within the budget” when choosing fabrics and making requests that bring then outside the agreed upon price. Paras is known for this, as well as shooting straight.

“What you see is what you get with Lisa,” says Jim Pike, a longtime customer and friend. “My wife, Carol and I got to know Lisa when she first opened her business, before she got so big.” Pike says that they first met her buying fabric and took an “immediate liking to her” because, he says, she is so genuine.

The Pikes have know Paras for around 10 years are retired educators who worked some with Paras during summer months long ago — not because they had to, but more because they wanted to.

“We saw how she ran her business,” says Pike. “Whether you came in to buy fabric or just ask a question, you got the same kind of service – personal and right.” (The Pikes have recently moved into a new place since retiring and Paras is doing all their new drapes.)

Paras is known for her sense of figuring out what folks require for a job when it comes to fabric.

“We like to do things that people need, versus what we want them to have,” she says. “Anyone can pick up a phone and order fabric, but our real claim to fame is finding treasures for less.”

And deals they do find with what she calls “dumpster diving” — simply going through thousands of samples, trying to find the item that’s underpriced.

She says she and her staff try to price the fabrics not what they're worth, but more like what they pay for it. She adds that she carries what other stores carry, but because of how she gets it, she doesn’t need to mark it up.

Her customers come in looking for bargains and all of them know she’s on the lookout for bargain fabric. She’s learned that when a furniture company drops a fabric, that it doesn’t mean it’s “gone.” Most customers don’t really understand how it works, she says. “If you can’t order a fabric, the value actually goes down – not up.”

Among the many things Lisa Paras and her able staff of 12 designers can do are the following: custom furniture, selling fabric for furniture and drapery, design and fabricate window treatments and she has staff that can go out and help her customers put together paints and colors and fabrics. But, Paras says she’s doesn’t do things like pick put colors for folks.

“Believe me; you do not want me picking out your colors!” she said with a laugh.