Costume Making Part 5 – Embellishing

Before I get to the embellishing part i wanted to note something. I’m making 2 of these costumes for 2 different girls so i started to get confused as to which was which, this caused me to think about having labels made. After looking around I found the cost and quantity’s were just too much for my little hobby.

Labels

Then I stumbled across Allyson Hill’s Blog who has a section on how to make your own labels.

Now for the Sparkle =)

Being a complete newbie to this part I went back to the computer to do the research, and I’m glad I did.

I found IceMom’s Blog and it was super helpful for the Embellishments part. She has reviews of some of the tools involved and links to a number of different Rhinestone Suppliers on the web, as well as she goes into detail about the difference between the more expensive Swarovski stones compared to the slightly cheaper Preciosa stones.

From her information I chose Dreamtime Creations as my stone supplier and I’m very happy with them… Easy ordering fast shipping no complaints at all

So first I printed out the rhinestone pattern I made in Illustrator. Then i took a garment marking pen that i got from Joann Fabrics which disappears over time. Or if you want the marks gone faster just rub with a damp cloth and poof there gone, and used it to transfer the pattern to the garment.

I chose hotfix stones for these Costumes and have had good success with them although … on both the hotfix tools I purchased I had problems with the stones falling out of the tip before I had them inplace. So my answer to this was the hot spot tip which is just a flat tip. I placed the stones on the marked pattern on the garment with a set of long tweezers and pressed the tool on them inplace, held for 20 seconds each stone and poof rhinestone done.

yes it takes forever, but I think it’s well worth the time as it defiantly “completed” the costumes

Notes on this;
The garment should be stretched a little when applying the stones since it will be stretched on the wearer, so i took my jig saw and cut out a thin piece of wood in the shape of my dress form, but its perfectly flat, and put the garments on that board to do the stoning
It gave me a nice easy to use work surface and protected whatever I was working on from the heat.

Complete