As the wedding and hen party season is almost in full swing, we’ve been looking at ways to DIY a personalized gift for the blushing bride, and you can’t go wrong with an expensive looking (but inexpensive costing) crystallized champagne flute! The beauty of a homemade DIY gift is that you have full control over what it will say, the colour scheme, the font and even if you choose to embellish an image rather than wording. And decorating a champagne glass with rhinestones means you’re making something totally unique and personalized to the recipient. This technique of gluing crystals onto glass is so simple, cost effective and can be applied to anything – it doesn’t have to be wedding themed, you can use this project idea for any occasion.
Here, we are showing you how easy it is the crystallize the word ‘Bride’ onto a champagne flute, we have used clear rhinestones but you can choose any colour you like.
You will need
• Zodiac clear rhinestones SS6, SS10 & SS16 – the Zodiac brand is a great quality and low cost alternative to Swarovski crystals.
• Gem Tac glue – a great glue for any rhinestone craft, it dries crystal clear and is very durable.
• Rhinestone pick up tool – we used a crystal Katana, but there are cheaper options available such as the Tanto pick up tool.
• Syringe and tip applicator – using a syringe to apply small amounts of glue is essential, especially when gluing a glass surface. If you use a brush or glue spreader, it will form smear marks on the glass which will show up.
• Sorting tray – this is a handy tray for storing and separating the rhinestones, especially when using different sizes.
• Printed template – we printed out the word Bride in a fancy font which we found free online.
• Kitchen roll
Step by step guide
1. Firstly, print out your chosen template, it could be wording, an initial, an image or logo etc. This will need to be small enough to roll up and place inside the glass, as this is the guide we’ll be following with the glue.
2. Once you have placed the template inside the glass and found the right position, keep it in place by stuffing the glass with kitchen roll. This will stop the paper moving around while you work.
3. Fill about 2cm of the syringe applicator with Gem Tac glue, this will be enough for a small project like this. Once you have squeezed out any excess air bubbles, screw on the tip and you’re ready to go.
4. Decant some of your rhinestones into the sorting tray, give it a shake and it will flip the rhinestones shiny side up – making it a lot easier to pick them up later.
5. Gently squeeze the syringe until the glue starts to come out, then apply tiny dots of glue onto the glass, following your template. Make around 10 – 12 dots to start with, then leave a few seconds to get tacky.
6. Using the wax end of the pick up tool, pick up and place a crystal onto the first glue dot, continue doing this until you have covered all the dots you made.
7. Continue to apply glue dots, then crystals, in the same way, you’ll find that you get quicker and more confident as you go along. Carefully follow your template and use the correct size crystals to correspond with the size of the lettering. In this case, we used the SS6 for the very thin, end parts of the letters, SS10 for the main parts, then SS16 for the thicker part of the font. This gives a much neater finish and flows well.
8. You can use the other end of the pick up tool to adjust the positioning of the rhinestones while the glue is still wet. Make sure each rhinestone is sitting flush to the glass, with no gaps in between each one.
We finished off the ‘Bride’ with a heart over the ‘i’ and used a different colour rhinestone for it – in this case, AB. This little detail adds another fun element to the finished design.
Allow the glue to dry fully (we recommend 24 hours) before using or wrapping the glass. Gently wipe over the rhinestones with a dry cloth, to remove any dust or grease marks, and this will make your design sparkle even more!