You have heard the phrase, "What makes a person tick?" Well, this is about what makes a hot fix rhinestone stick. The details are important to understanding how these embellishments work, and what gives them such personal flair.
A Type of Adhesive on the Backs
Each of these faux stones has a special type of adhesive covering the backs. When a special heating tool is used, it heats through a cloth item to melt the adhesive on the backs of the fake gems. You can also use a hot iron if you have one. The special heating tool can only heat one "gem" at a time, but you can get multiple gems to stick with an iron. A lot of people use the former tool when they just want to do a couple of faux stones for accents, and they use the iron when they want to bedazzle a garment like crazy.
Pronged Jeweler's Settings for Cloth Decoration
If you want to show kids how to use these fake gems to decorate jeans and t-shirts, you can skip the irons. Instead, utilize pronged jeweler's settings made specifically for clothing crafting. These items are little rings made to fit different-sized fake rhinestones. The rings have very sharp little prongs sticking up. The rings go on the side of the cloth item where you do not want anyone to see anything, and the prongs are poked through the cloth item to the other side. The fake stones are then set into the prongs, and a special tool is used to press over the tops of the prongs and "stones" to push the prongs closed over the "stones," thereby securing them in place to the cloth without a hot and potentially dangerous iron.
The "Stones" Are Paste, So Be Careful
These fake gems are made of a plastic paste that is reasonably heat-resistant. However, that does not mean that they cannot be melted if too much heat is applied to them. If the setting on your iron is too hot, you may find that not only is the adhesive backing melted, but also a little of the fake gems on the sides and fronts can be slightly melted and deformed. Follow the instructions on the packages of your faux rhinestones and never set an iron for a setting hotter than the cloth or the "stones" are able to manage without being burned in the process.
For more information on hot fix rhinestones, contact a company like ModeBeads that sells them.
Share