Everyone knows how important a great dance costume is. All of the hard work and practice put into routines by dancers deserves to be highlighted in a special and beautiful way, and a costume can do just that! If you’re like any of the studio owners I know, you put in TONS of time and effort trying to find or make special costumes that bring out the best in your dancers. One way to enhance an already great costume or upgrade an old costume is to add rhinestone designs to the costume.
Rhinestone Designs and Application 101
New to the idea of rhinestones, or never tried it before? Check out the tutorial video below. It’s a longer video, but one of the best and most thorough videos we saw online. It talks about rhinestone designs, tools, tips, and more.
[wpsm_video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMHIiF4qAZA[/wpsm_video]
Choose A Design That Fits the Costume
So you’re ready to get started! Before you do anything else, answer this question:
What do you want your “upgraded” costume to accomplish?
- Do you want to accent patterns that already exist on the costume?
- Do you want to create totally new patterns?
- Are you looking to just add some pop to the costume?
BDancewear’s “5 Ways to Rhinestone Your Dance Costume” has 5 suggestions on different rhinestone designs you can add to your dance costumes, plus individual how-to’s for each design included as clickable links in the video.
[wpsm_video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D_99V291Go[/wpsm_video]
Like the video mentions, you can use rhinestones to:
- Add some pop with a scattered design that is simple but effective
- Accent an existing costume design and make different features stand out
- Add a totally new design feature that re-imagines the potential of a costume
- Or any combination!
Practice Makes Perfect
As with many craft projects, it takes a few tries to get it right. And if you’re trying to add some new life to a costume that will need to last for a season or a year, your work needs to be pretty good!
So, do some practicing with cheaper rhinestones on practice material to get your form down. The first video tutorial talked about some tools and techniques to make your rhinestone application perfect: don’t forget to also see what has and hasn’t worked for people before!
We found an awesome article on the blog “My Life As A Dancem0m” that talked about a few mistakes made on past rhinestone projects that became lessons for the future.
With the right preparation, practice, and perseverance, your dance costume is sure to be a future masterpiece!
