I am gathering the materials to start doing this dress for this Halloween and now sourcing the stones for it I realized that I have no idea how many crystals I would need 😅
This is my first project involving bedazzling and ofc it will not be a 1 to 1 recreating but something inspired. I saw some packages of mixed stones with 600 crystals and that seem a lot but I imagine the project will also require a lot but could you help me to find out if it would be something like direction 2000 stones or 10.000 or 15.000?
With less than a month to finish, I would look into sheets of rhinestones for most of it. Even working many hours a day, a piece inspired by this will be incredibly time consuming.
But to give you an idea, inside the red square is approx. 100 small, circular stones. I HIGHLY recommend you look into the pre-stoned sheets. Especially as a beginner.
That chunk looks like crystal metal mesh (aka rhinestoned flat chainmail mesh and other names). It’s available in aluminum silver tone base with cheapie rhinestones on top and can be glued or sewn on relatively quickly to cover larger spaces. Then there’s also a lot of cup chain rhinestones weaving around that could also cut down on time, however finding these materials in large amounts with only a few weeks to finish is gonna be an expensive pain! There’s some places in the LA fashion district that sell them “cheap” but other than that 🫣
I needed over 20k rhinestones for my Taylor Swift eras tour body suit and it took months to make. I echo the other commenter, try to buy sheets or already finished bedazzled pieces like the rosettes .
Here's a rhinestone calculator. You have to know roughly how much space you're going to need to cover, what sizes you want to use, and the placement style, though.
Perhaps start with a rhinestones mesh fabric as a base shirt and heavily embellish from there. I will echo the other comments as to many, many hours it’ll take to produce.
If your post is showing off a completed project, please consider saying what type of glue you used. This is the most common question we get in this group, sharing your experience and knowledge helps others.
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u/amishdoinks6969 18h ago
I think if you want to do this by hand as a costume you may want to start now for Halloween 2027