So, here's what I learned. A Crystal Katana, E6000 glue, and real Swarovski Crystals are definitely the way to go. I know the pictures don't do it justice but this dress SPARKLES! I purchased my stones in bulk from rhinestonebiz.com and they came quickly and were packaged nicely. No loose stones! I'm also really glad I decided to go with colored stones rather than the clear AB stones. I wanted sparkle but I didn't want it to overshadow the dress and, since I still wanted the dress to look black and gray, the colored stones were a good call. I just didn't want it to look like I was dripping in bling. Ew. So, let's talk stone size (or SS as it's commonly known as). The 30ss and the 20ss were really easy to glue on. One drop of glue, place the stone, and press! Done! But, I bought a bunch of the little guys too not knowing how tiny they actually were (5ss, 7ss, 9ss, 12ss, and 16ss). I was able to use the 16ss for the collar and the hair ties but the smaller ones were impossible for me to work with. SO SMALL! Next time, it's 20ss and above only! Finally, I learned that once I start stoning, you really shouldn't talk to me. I'm in the stone zone! There were a couple of times during my first stoning session that I dropped an F-Bomb or two and when my husband asked if everything was okay, I got even more frustrated (not at him, of course, but at the situation). During my second session, I told him to just leave me be no matter what he hears escaping from my mouth or how many tears are shed. It worked! I was much more calm :)
So, the results! This is the unadorned dress right when I took it out of the packaging. Even if I didn't put anything on it, it's a Brad Griffies dress and it's pretty all on its own. I tried it on and it fit perfectly. It came with two matching hair ties and I ended up putting crystals on those too because I had a lot of stones left over.
Back in January, I put all the stones on the gray part of the dress and that took about 3 hours. I was trying to go for a gradual fade where the stones are clustered together near the collar but then gradually become more sparse toward the waist. I alternated 30ss and 20ss along the seams and, since I had a lot of stones, I doubled back and did another line right below that. The "crystal silver night" color was a near perfect match for the gray fabric. The goal was to let the dress rest for the week and then finish it up the following weekend but lazy happened. I didn't finish it up until last night (a whole month later) and it took about 2 hours. So yeah, not doing that again! All at once or nothing at all! Since the gray part was so heavy with crystals, I didn't want the black part to have to compete with that so I went a little lighter on the "jet hematite" crystals. I used 30ss along the seam and on the bodice but used my 20ss crystals for the skirt. The skirt was tricky but sticking parchment paper in between the black part of the skirt and the gray part of the skirt worked wonders. The last thing I want to do is glue both layers of the skirt together! I don't have pictures of the back because it's essentially the same as the front. Finally, I did the collar. Originally, I thought about leaving the collar alone but I had so many of the 16ss gray crystals and I didn't want them to go to waste. So, nothing fancy on the collar, just some scattered crystals for some extra sparkle.
So, would I do it again? Hells yeah!! I saved a lot of money by doing it myself and, yeah, it was anxiety inducing, but I think the finished product looks okay enough to compete in. My design for the stones was pretty basic so I'm not up to "Brad Griffies" level stoning anytime soon but I'm proud of what I was able to accomplish :)
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