DIY Rhinestone Glasses - Take Two

Like most girly-girls, I'm a total magpie; I love everything that sparkles and must have it! Remember a few years ago when those rhinestone glasses were all the rage? Well, in true magpie fashion I loved them and needed them for myself! Now, at the time my budget didn't exactly agree with me because those glasses were thousands of dollars, so sometimes a girl has to get creative- and crafty.

I don't know about you, but I have a couple of cheap sunglasses lying around that I've somehow accumulated over the years, and I had a "futuristic" styled shoot scheduled a while back so I decided it was time to finally get my sparkly glasses even if it meant I had to get creative and make my own fabulous Gaga/Dita inspired rhinestone glasses of fabulousness (yes, that is the official name).

For this craft you will need:
-Sunglasses/Glasses
-Rhinestones/Gems (according to taste)
-Scotch Tape (or double sided tape) (optional)
-Hot Glue/E6000 Glue (For this craft, you can use any kind of glue, really. I prefer hot glue because it dries instantly and you don't have to worry about the rhinestones slipping or falling out of place as they dry, though they can leave 'strings' behind, which is a downer, so you do have some 'clean up' to do on your work afterwards, even if you are both experienced and careful. If you aren't experienced with working with hot glue or don't want to worry about the 'string' issue, you can use any liquid adhesive, such as E6000.)
-Tweezers (optional)
-Razor Blade/Exacto Knife (optional)
​-Acetone (optional)

1. First I gathered my inspirational images 
I mean, how can you not drool over these... they are just so FABULOUS! I knew I wanted to make something that was both light and dark as well as SUPER SPARKLY, so I found some good images to give me an idea of what my final product would look like, grabbed my giant bag of rhinestones and my spare sunglasses and went to work!

​2. Seperate out your preferred rhinestones/gems
For me, since I was using a strict black/white pattern, I simply grabbed a pile of white rhinestones in several sizes, and a pile of black rhinestones in several sizes.

3. Draft your Design on the Glasses
Cover glasses in tape and "draft" the look of your glasses (I didn't have double-sided tape so I rolled regular scotch-tape) to determine spacing and amount of rhinestones needed for your desired design. I used several sizes of rhinestones when I was placing them together to ensure there was as little empty space between the gems for a more interesting look that would ensure more facets for maximum sparkle potential (because go big or go home, right?). I even set aside some smaller ones to layer over some of the areas where there was a smaller "gap" to ensure the surface was as covered as possible with gems.

 4. Prep your work surface
Remove the rhinestones from the tape and set them aside- but be sure to keep the design you will be making on the glasses in-tact so you can add them easily to your glasses. I suggest removing them from one corner to the other, setting your gems in the order they are removed so you can put them on again easily in the same pattern.

Clean the glasses you're about to decorate using glasses wipes or windex, but ensure they are fully dry before starting to decorate them as it may negatively affect the adhesive you decide to use.

5. Decorate!
Use your desired glue to cover the glasses with your rhinestones or gems by putting a small dab of glue on the back of each rhinestone (FYI- use too much glue and it flows over the edges of the rhinestone once in place, which leaves you with a mess to clean up and could even possibly mess up your whole pattern. Use too little glue and your rhinestones may fall off. So basically, you need get an idea of a good balance after adding 1 or 2 gems and you see how the glue spreads on the surface of the glasses and they're added)  and then add each rhinestone individually and carefully to ensure 1) you maintain the integrity of the design you're creating, 2) the glue doesn't dry before the rhinestones are added, and 3) to keep the 'excess' glue and/or 'glue strings' down to a minimum for a cleaner more professional look to the project.

Tip: If you have shaky hands or big/clumsy fingers, it may be helpful to use tweezers when placing your stone on your glasses.

After the first layer of rhinestones was complete, I added in an additional layer of rhinestones on top of the first layer on one pair of sunglasses to 1) hide some of the more 'unattractive' spaces between stones and jagged edges that I wanted to hide, and 2) add more sparkle!

Optional- to make the "white" side extra sparkly I used sparkling silver puff paint as grout around the rhinestones. I used plain black puffpaint as grout on the black side so the glasses would be more 'matte' than the other side- and they came out pretty well if I do say so myself!