Want shortcuts for rhinestoning your costumes? 🙂
Today I’m excited to share with you this cool product!
The ladies at Crystal Queen contacted me a while ago and sent their rhinestone stencil kit for me to try!
Since I had a new dress in progress, I used it to decorate the neckline of the dress!
So let me show you how I used the product and how my experience was.
(Find a special coupon code towards the end 😉 )
Let’s get started!
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Crystal Queen Rhinestone Stencil Review
Packaging & Shipping
They packaged everything nicely, and if you’re wondering if they do international shipping, yes, they do! They are located in Australia, and I’m in Japan, and the package arrived safe and sound in about 2 weeks.
What’s in a kit?
So first, this is the kit. This design is called Pradiso, and you get the stencil, all the rhinestones you need, and 2 earring clips and 2 rings. I love that you can make matching accessories to go with the costume! And a pencil to pick up rhinestones with and trays. And a diagram that shows you which stones go where.
How to use the rhinestone stencil kit
They have tutorials on how to use their products on their YouTube channel.
But basically, first you cover your surface with plastic wrap so the stones won’t stick to it. I wanted to apply rhinestones to this dress neckline, so I cut a piece of cardboard that’s a little bigger than the dress. Covered it with plastic wrap and inserted inside the dress.
They recommend you use tacky glue like E6000 which you can also get from their store. If you want to use a syringe for applying rhinestone glue easily, I have a tutorial on that topic here.
Since my neckline is wider than this stencil, I decided to use just the 2 bottom rows and the rest of the design below them. I aligned the center mark, and the center part of the neckline.
Using the narrow holes, you can pin the stencil to your garment. I placed pins at the beginning, but later I removed them because it stayed well without them. Also, large clips worked well for keeping it in place.
Once you set it up, it’s super easy. You simply dot in a little bit of glue in the center of each hole. And place a rhinestone of the correct size according to the diagram into each hole.
I found this so easy and relaxing. You don’t need to worry if your line of stones is straight or looks good, because the stencil takes care of that.
But when you have a finished neckline like I did here, as opposed to doing this on a piece of fabric, it’s a bit tricky to align the stencil. So I focused on aligning the top row to the neckline, which was the second row from the bottom for me, and pivot the stencil from the last rhinestone I worked on. This worked well, and kept the design consistent.
It does start to stick to the cardboard, so you need to lift your garment from time to time.
I also realized that the stencil keeps the dress clean. This type of thick adhesive tends to leave strings of glue or excess glue in between rhinestones. But the excess glue stays on the stencil instead of going all over the dress. So that was a great bonus!
But when you leave too much glue on the stencil, the rhinestones stick to it or come off the garment when you remove the stencil. So I had to fix a few rhinestones like that.
When I was finished with the smaller rhinestones, I was ready to add the larger ones. I applied a generous amount of glue on the back side of each stone, and placed it in the corresponding motif.
So at this point I was supposed to place it upside down to leave the glue to dry. And I tried to remove the cardboard, then a stone fell off. So instead, I placed it upside down first, then removed the cardboard carefully. I could have left the cardboard in there until everything was dry, but I was afraid that the dress might stick to the plastic wrap by the next morning. So I removed it, and left the dress like this overnight.
And it’s finished! I must say, it looks beautiful and really glammed up the neckline of this dress. Since it was super easy to create a nice, consistent design, I’m thinking to use the stencil in other areas to decorate this dress further.
My honest review
To summarize, here’s what I honestly thought about this kit.
Pros:
- Super easy – The stencil makes it effortless to make a beautiful pattern with rhinestones. It’s nice you don’t have to think about anything or draw your design on fabric ahead of time. Great for beginner costumers, or experienced ones that want shortcuts. Also, it’s great if you’re decorating troupe costumes and need to make a consistent rhinestone design over and over.
- Sturdy stencil – Nice, plastic stencils that you can use over and over again! As long as you buy the right size stones, you can use any colors and make your own.
- Safely packaged
- Helps you plan – The stencil helps me plan my design because I can see how large the design is going to be. Sometimes what I sketch doesn’t come out as I envisioned, so this is very helpful.
- Everything in one package – The kit was perfect because I got everything I needed, and didn’t have to go look for the correct sizes of rhinestones. And you can also make matching accessories.
- Statement piece
Cons:
- Online instructions – Tutorials are available on YouTube, which is awesome, but instructions on paper with images would have been useful for someone like me who gets excited and wants to start the project right away!
- Tricky for finished necklines – It was a bit tricky to apply the stencil on an already finished neckline at first. It’s absolutely doable, but you just have to move the stencil often to suit your neckline.
But this is also what I liked about this stencil. If you’re creative enough, you can adjust how you want to place it. Or add more to this design!
In general, I really enjoyed using Crystal Queen’s Paradiso kit and rhinestone stencil! I’m looking forward to decorating this dress further with it, and they also generously sent me another stencil to try, so I’ll be using this in my upcoming tutorial in the near future!
So if you’re curious, go over to their website and you can find kits like one I showed you here, other stencils, and they also have downloadable templates for those of you who want to try right away. Have fun browsing and getting ideas for your next costume!
And for the Sparkly Belly costumers, they gave a 15% coupon! The coupon code is SPARKLYBELLY, and you can use it on all their stencils, downloadable templates and bundles. It’s valid until the end of May 2021, so go ahead and check it out now!
And a big thank you to the awesome ladies at Crystal Queen, who let me try their product 🙂
If you’re curious about making this dress, I show how to make it inside my Mirage Bodystocking premium course.
Make your own dress inside the Mirage Bodystocking premium course here!
Next week I’ll continue glamming up the neckline and make this sparkly statement necklace!
If you want to try making a necklace like this for yourself, subscribe to my newsletter below so you won’t miss the tutorial 😉
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Hope you liked this Crystal Queen rhinestone stencil review, and if you did, please share this video with your dancer and costumer friends! It’ll be great to buy a bunch of stencils and share with friends too!
Thanks for reading and keep sparkling!
P.S. Pin this image for your future reference 😉
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