Let me show you how to transform your plain belly dance dress into a high-end, designer look with mirror tiles, in 4 easy steps. The best part is, this only cost me $20.
I’m loving the recent trend of mirror dresses on belly dance stages!
These mirror tiles are lightweight, affordable, and super easy to apply, and the best of all, they turn your dress into an expensive-looking beauty!
So let me show you how you can achieve this look in this video!
What are Mirror Tiles?
Mirror tiles are these plastic mirrors. Because they are plastic, they are super light, and you don’t have to worry about dropping and breaking them, which is perfect for dance outfit embellishment.
Each one comes with little holes so you can sew them onto your garment.
They are available in many colors, shapes, and sizes now. You can find simple circles and squares, but what costume designers are doing recently is to mix all these shapes. As you can see on these dresses, using different shapes of mirror tiles creates a fun, fashionable feel, and it’s super easy to re-create the look, which you’ll see in a minute.
By the way, if you want to make belly dance dresses like these, check out Sparkly Belly’s All-Access Membership.
In All-Access Membership, you can access all my 18 courses, with over 30 designs available, and these 2 brand new designs will be added this month!
You can create all of them to fit your unique measurements and budgets. If you’re curious, learn more here!
Where Can You Buy Mirror Tiles? How Many?
You can find them in usual places like Amazon (affiliate) and Aliexpress. Search “sew on mirrors”.
How to Apply Mirror Tiles
So let’s start applying them to a dress!
Step 1. Remove the Protective Film
Usually, these tiles come with this protective film. Remove it from a corner for each one.
Step 2. Plan the Placement of the Mirror Tiles
We’re going to plan the placement, but first, it’s helpful to have a piece of cardboard wrapped in plastic wrap under the fabric, since we’re going to use glue in a minute.
Then place the mirror tiles on your dress, and plan out how you want to place them. If you need, you can use pins to keep the tiles in place.
For this one, I mixed different shapes of mirror tiles as well as some rhinestones, so I placed them all randomly in different directions.
Step 3. Glue on the Mirror Tiles
At this point, you can go ahead and sew on the tiles, but the tiles can shift easily as you try to sew. So, I like to use glue like Gem Tac, and glue each tile on the dress.
Let the glue dry a little while so the tiles don’t fall off when you pick up the dress. Until the glue dries, you can still move the tiles slightly to make minor adjustments.
Step 4. Sew on the Mirror Tiles
Take a double-threaded needle, and hand-sew each piece. Match the color of your thread with the color of your dress. I’m using a double-threaded needle here, and go through each hole once or twice, so each piece is firmly secured.
Bonus step: Glue on small rhinestones
Once the mirror tiles are sewn on, it already looks nice, but I like to fill the spaces between the tiles with small flatback rhinestones. Using the same Gem Tac glue, I glued on small rhinestones to add another layer of sparkle to this dress.
How Many Mirror Tiles Will You Need for Your Mirror Dress?
To decorate this pink dress, as you can see, I basically framed the entire neckline and the side cutouts with mirror tiles, and I ordered 240 pieces of mirror tiles for this project. And that cost me $20. I filled spaces in between the tiles with small rhinestones, which I had on hand already, but if you don’t, you can get them for another $5 or so. I bought the rhinestones from here.
And this mirror dress is complete! Look at the transformation. The dress with mirror tiles looks way more professional and expensive, but as you saw, the process was super easy and beginner-friendly, and quite budget-friendly too!
So try crafting your own mirror dress, and if you’re looking for more easy embellishment ideas, you’ll enjoy my tutorial on making sparkly fabric fringe, which is another beautiful, trendy look.
Thanks for reading, and keep sparkling!
P.S. Pin this image on your decoration idea board!
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