# A suggestion to those who sell rhinestone design templates



## leapoffaith (Nov 8, 2009)

I just came across a rhinestone design that I love and was getting ready to purchase. Then I discovered it has the same problem that a lot of rhinestone templates for sale online has -- it's TOO LARGE!!

Many of my rhinestone customers who want a fitted (Bella) t-shirt with a rhinestone design cannot wear something that is more than 8 to 8.5 inches across. It starts to go under their arms any wider than that. Some of the ones for sale are 10.5" across! That does not work on many women. 

I know that I do not have the only customers who need the design to stay under 8.5". 

I voiced this concern to one vendor that I do buy designs from and they suggested that I just substitute ss06 stones. Ummmmm, no. 

It's easy to make rhinestone designs that are very LARGE. I can do that!!  The tricky part (and the part I'm willing to pay for) is making nice designs with ss10 stones and keep them a reasonable size. 

I have bought many beautiful designs that do fit with my 8 to 8.5" requirement. But I have passed on many other designs that are too wide. *I know from talking to other rhinestoners that I am not the only one who doesn't buy this size design.*

So, just a suggestion.......


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## BlingItOn (May 29, 2008)

I have to agree with you. I do not have many customers who ask for a design to be any larger than 9 inches across. Not sure why a vendor of template patterns would feel the need to make a design much larger than that other than the larger the pattern the more rhinestones it takes to make that design. If they are also selling rhinestones then their customers have to purchase larger quantities. It's a win win situation for them I guess.


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## leapoffaith (Nov 8, 2009)

I think the main reason that they are so large is that the smaller the design, the more difficult it is to make it look right. The larger it is, the easier it is to make it look great.


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## allhamps (Mar 15, 2007)

I agree with Leap, for folks using templated, no one wants to have to use the dreaded ss06 stones, so to get any decent detail on a design using only ss10 stones or larger, you have to make the design larger.

I wear a size small, and I keep my designs at 9", although a 10" design works on a fitted shirt for me, without going under the arms. The problem with strictly designing at 8", is the design starts to look "lost" as the size of the shirt goes up. Ever seen an 8" design on a 2x shirt, not a pleasing sight.

When designing for someone I always offer them at least 2 sizes, unless they request specific measurements. My schools/youth groups always get a choice of 3 sizes. Typically 4-6 mostly ss06, 8-10, mostly ss10, and 12-14, mostly ss16.

However, the main reason I stopped doing templates for sale was everyone' wish to have a "smaller" sized design, but stick to ss10 stones.


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## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

I can't wear anything over 9" wide or it goes into my armpits. I try to keep my designs between 8" and 9" wide. I actually make all the way up to 3XL shirts even with 8" designs and I've never, ever had a complaint that the design was too small. 

But you're right... the reason that they make them so wide is because it's so much easier to design and they just want to keep cranking them out. It can take a lot of time to get a design to look really good within a narrower parameter.


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## littlefatbuddy (Oct 8, 2012)

I recently bought a fairly detailed car decal. Those are generally smaller than what you would put on a shirt, right? This person used ss10 stones for almost the whole design, but went back and placed smaller stones in some places to get the detail. I thought it looked great. The design was a cartoonish cardinal, full size, not just the head. I took them to my wife's school and gave them as gifts. I have had 10 more people ask for them, but that gets expensive to just keep giving away. Blingiton does that design ring any bells? They were great. I threw one in my gym bag and forgot about it. Three days later I found it all bent and crumpled, only two stones came off in all that throwing, bending, crumpling, and who knows what else in that gym bag. Great work and thank you.


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## littlefatbuddy (Oct 8, 2012)

However, that might not work on shirts, I have no idea. I do know that I am 5'7" and weigh right at 240lbs. and wear a size 52 jacket, give or take. I have to wear mostly 2x shirts and some designs can start to look a little small. Not that I wear rhinestoned shirts, not that there is anything wrong with a guy wearing them, I just dont. That sounded like a Seinfield episode I saw. I was referring to other mediums.


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## ifusion (Jun 3, 2011)

I guess it depends on the design. I sell transfers all the time. Kids designs I try to keep around 6 inches wide. Adult transfers I usually range from 8-11 inches wide.

Depending on the complexity of the design, I can usually resize my designs with relatively little work (and I keep it on file).

You cant sell someone who wants an extra large short a 6 inch wide design because it will be lost on their body type.

I'd like to think that this is one of the beinefits of doing rhinestone transfers on placement machines rather than brush in templates... You can keep adjusting the design as needed without wasting materials.


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## BlingItOn (May 29, 2008)

littlefatbuddy said:


> I recently bought a fairly detailed car decal. Those are generally smaller than what you would put on a shirt, right? This person used ss10 stones for almost the whole design, but went back and placed smaller stones in some places to get the detail. I thought it looked great. The design was a cartoonish cardinal, full size, not just the head. I took them to my wife's school and gave them as gifts. I have had 10 more people ask for them, but that gets expensive to just keep giving away. Blingiton does that design ring any bells? They were great. I threw one in my gym bag and forgot about it. Three days later I found it all bent and crumpled, only two stones came off in all that throwing, bending, crumpling, and who knows what else in that gym bag. Great work and thank you.


I would love to take credit for what sounds like a very detailed design but it was not me that you purchased the decal from. I believe there is another Bling It On member and he/she might have been the one that sold you the design. 

I recently had someone send me an image of a HO HO HO design and the finished design was approx. 10" x 10". The vertical lines in the "H" from what I could tell were about 8 rows thick and the "O" was about 3" in diameter. This was a simple design that could have easily been scaled down so I wonder why the designer felt the need to make it so large. I'm a small/medium and I would not wear something that large on a t-shirt.


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## allhamps (Mar 15, 2007)

Maybe for the back of a 4xl shirt. Seriously, when I do designs that large, they are not for apparel. most often used for window/wall signage.


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## jasmynn (Sep 16, 2011)

I used to have this problem when I used to buy fonts. I used to get so mad because once you type a basic word like football in ss10, it's over 10"!! What's the point? So glad I don't have to rely on those anymore.


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## web528 (Jul 6, 2011)

I struggle with sizes of designs too. I have a large variety of small and big designs and I always post the size of the design on the website. I have started looking at non-rhinestone shirts and those designs really vary as well.


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## diana13t (Mar 11, 2009)

jasmynn said:


> I used to have this problem when I used to buy fonts. I used to get so mad because once you type a basic word like football in ss10, it's over 10"!! What's the point? So glad I don't have to rely on those anymore.


That's a problem I use to have with one of my wholesale customers. I was creating 3" names using College font for the back of shirts. She wanted me to make a rhinestone font file for her so she could type it out herself. I said it wouldn't work for her because if the name was long, the design would be way too long in rhinestones. For the longest time she couldn't understand why I had to cutomize each name. So then she started piecing together some letters from previous names and figured it out for herself. "Matthews" ended up being something like 24" long when she was done with it. Then she stopped giving me a hard time for having to customize each name .


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## BlingItOn (May 29, 2008)

That has to be my biggest daily battle with my customers too. I just had a request for a six letter word that they needed it no longer that 1.5" wide....in a Disney font at that.


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## allhamps (Mar 15, 2007)

OMG, I am so glad to know that it's not just me. I cringe when I get a custom request and they want something 1.5x1.5 and it's a paragraph long???!!!!


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## SickPuppy (Aug 10, 2009)

The average women's clothing size in the United States is not 8, it is 14, and the average size for men is 44.

I Just pressed a rhinestone design onto a 3XL, the design was 12 inches wide and it still looked small.


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## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

SickPuppy said:


> The average women's clothing size in the United States is not 8, it is 14, and the average size for men is 44.
> 
> I Just pressed a rhinestone design onto a 3XL, the design was 12 inches wide and it still looked small.


I understand that, but what do you do when a woman who wears a size 2 comes to you for the same design? I'm wearing a fitted thermal right now with a design I made to be 9" wide and it wraps around the sides of my chest. I actually wear a large in the Bella fitted shirts, not a medium or small.


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## fedoraoriginali (Aug 30, 2010)

As I designer I would like to know preferred sizes of my customers so I have started a poll HERE.


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## BlingItOn (May 29, 2008)

When I make a design to sell on my website I usually stay between 8" - 9" for an adult size tee and up to 10" if I know it will be going on a sweatshirt. For designs for myself I like them to be closer to the 8" size. As Stephanie mentioned if they are too long then the design starts to fall off the sides. I prefer them to be front and center. If a customer doesn't like the size that I selected then they are welcome to fill out my Request A Custom Design form. They have the option to request the design to be made to fit their size if they want. In most cases my customers are satisfied with the design size I select but I also do not come across too many oversized people.


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## DivineBling (Sep 14, 2010)

BlingItOn is totally right... I also go up up 10" and sometimes even 11" for sweatshirt designs but will have a scaled down version for tee shirts. 

I actually do get a fair share of 2xl and 3xl shirt orders but I've never had anyone complain or ask for a larger design and they still always come back and order more stuff.


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## leapoffaith (Nov 8, 2009)

SickPuppy said:


> The average women's clothing size in the United States is not 8, it is 14


I'm sure this is true, but I don't think it holds true for women who are buying rhinestone tee's. It defiinitely doesn't for my customer base, anyway.


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