# Small scale newbie with a few questions :)



## tscanaan (Feb 24, 2011)

I have a small gift shop and am adding rhinestone t-shirts. They will be simple ones....like our school mascot, baseball, football, etc...
I purchased a cricut expression and the fairycut software. I printed my first template last night, it printed out great....but when I tried to brush the rhinestones over it....none of the rhinestones went into the holes!
I did just use the cricut vinyl....do I need to use something different? If so where do I look?
Any help is appreciated!!


----------



## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

You can do a search for rhinestone template material and find several different kinds. 

What do you mean by the rhinestones going into the holes? Do you mean the material lifted up and the stones slid underneath? 

Congratulations on your new venture! That's exactly how I started out! I made a tee shirt for my baby sister who is a sophomore in high school and the ladies who run the student store loved it and ordered 25 from me within a week! I didn't even have a business name yet! Rhinestone design is a ton of fun and there is always something new to learn!


----------



## tscanaan (Feb 24, 2011)

When I run the brush over the stones they do not go into the holes....the just brush around on the vinyl....it looked so easy in all the videos that I watched and it wasn't like that at all for me!!


----------



## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

tscanaan said:


> When I run the brush over the stones they do not go into the holes....the just brush around on the vinyl....it looked so easy in all the videos that I watched and it wasn't like that at all for me!!


Okay, your holes are just too small. What size circles are you using? If Fairy Cut is like WinPCSIGN, you have an option to select a stone size. The stone sizes that are preset are the ACTUAL size of the rhinestone. So if you print it out on a printer, you could place each stone on top of the printout and they would be the same size. Because you're trying to brush stones into holes, you need to make your holes bigger so that the stones can actually fit into them. The general rule is to select 3 sizes larger than what you need. So if you're making a template for ss10 stones, you want to select ss13 in the rhinestone box. Does that make sense?


----------



## tscanaan (Feb 24, 2011)

Ok...I got ya!! Lol....I feel kind of silly now! Thank you!


----------



## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

tscanaan said:


> Ok...I got ya!! Lol....I feel kind of silly now! Thank you!


Don't feel silly!!! When I first got the software, I assumed it was meant to be cut and would accommodate for the hole size.

I also have Bling !t which DOES accommodate for the hole size so if I select ss10, it cuts the holes large enough automatically to brush the rhinestones in. There are so many different softwares out there and they all have different settings. It just takes time to learn each one!

Post a photo of a completed shirt if you can! I'd love to see your design!


----------



## MDsUnique (Nov 19, 2009)

tscanaan said:


> I printed my first template last night, it printed out great....but when I tried to brush the rhinestones over it....none of the rhinestones went into the holes!
> I did just use the cricut vinyl....do I need to use something different? If so where do I look?
> Any help is appreciated!!


If I read your post correctly, you used regular vinyl to cut your template? If so, then that would be your problem. The template material is definitely thicker than vinyl, thereby allowing the stones to fall into the little holes. There are quite a few suppliers that sell this material, depending on how much downforce your cutter has. I believe the Cricut machines have good downforce so any of the materials mentioned throughout these posts will work for you. Do a search for "rhinestone template material" to see what's out there. I own the Silhouette SD machine so right now I've only used that brand's material. I understand that Specialty Graphics has their own brand that will work on my machine so I may purchase from them to try it out. HTH!


----------



## drakesis (Apr 3, 2007)

You need a thicker material, the vinyl is too thin for the rhinestones to "drop-in". You'll need a stencil material or card stock.


----------

