Bling bling
I am very new to the competition scene so I am still learning about the world of competitive skating. Sure, I watch it on TV, but I don't know much about the action that happens off-camera. One aspect of skating competitions that I certainly had no knowledge about was the costuming.
The dress I wore for my Adult Bronze freestyle dress cost less than $50 and it was very simple. It had an empire waist and was red on top and black on the bottom (I skated to a tango piece). My Adult Silver freestyle dress was a little bit more fancy, but it was still considered an off-the-rack purchase. Since the Adult Gold program is a big deal (at least in my mind), I decided to go all out and buy a fancier dress.
My dress is still considered an off-the-rack design, but the manufacturer also added a set of Czech crystals for some extra sparkle. I did not want to pay an additional $300+ get the dress fully embellished so I asked my skating friend K to see if she could help me. K has been "blinging out" all her skating dresses since she was little, so she was fully versed in the blinging (also known as "stoning") process. She and I took a trip to our local craft store and bought a bunch of crystals to stone my dress.
I spent under $30 for all the stones and borrowed the heat gun from K, so my total investment (besides the dress) was minimal. It took a few hours to get everything the way I wanted, but I think it looks pretty awesome. I won't offer a tutorial here, but my skating friend Sarah recently posted instructions on how she stoned her skating dress (she used glue, whereas I used hot fix stones).
And because I want to keep the final product (and my program) a surprise until competition day, here is just a small section of what my dress looks like.
I'll show you the final dress after the competition. It is super sparkly!
I am very new to the competition scene so I am still learning about the world of competitive skating. Sure, I watch it on TV, but I don't know much about the action that happens off-camera. One aspect of skating competitions that I certainly had no knowledge about was the costuming.
The dress I wore for my Adult Bronze freestyle dress cost less than $50 and it was very simple. It had an empire waist and was red on top and black on the bottom (I skated to a tango piece). My Adult Silver freestyle dress was a little bit more fancy, but it was still considered an off-the-rack purchase. Since the Adult Gold program is a big deal (at least in my mind), I decided to go all out and buy a fancier dress.
My dress is still considered an off-the-rack design, but the manufacturer also added a set of Czech crystals for some extra sparkle. I did not want to pay an additional $300+ get the dress fully embellished so I asked my skating friend K to see if she could help me. K has been "blinging out" all her skating dresses since she was little, so she was fully versed in the blinging (also known as "stoning") process. She and I took a trip to our local craft store and bought a bunch of crystals to stone my dress.
I spent under $30 for all the stones and borrowed the heat gun from K, so my total investment (besides the dress) was minimal. It took a few hours to get everything the way I wanted, but I think it looks pretty awesome. I won't offer a tutorial here, but my skating friend Sarah recently posted instructions on how she stoned her skating dress (she used glue, whereas I used hot fix stones).
And because I want to keep the final product (and my program) a surprise until competition day, here is just a small section of what my dress looks like.
I'll show you the final dress after the competition. It is super sparkly!
I am very new to the competition scene so I am still learning about the world of competitive skating. Sure, I watch it on TV, but I don't know much about the action that happens off-camera. One aspect of skating competitions that I certainly had no knowledge about was the costuming.
The dress I wore for my Adult Bronze freestyle dress cost less than $50 and it was very simple. It had an empire waist and was red on top and black on the bottom (I skated to a tango piece). My Adult Silver freestyle dress was a little bit more fancy, but it was still considered an off-the-rack purchase. Since the Adult Gold program is a big deal (at least in my mind), I decided to go all out and buy a fancier dress.
My dress is still considered an off-the-rack design, but the manufacturer also added a set of Czech crystals for some extra sparkle. I did not want to pay an additional $300+ get the dress fully embellished so I asked my skating friend K to see if she could help me. K has been "blinging out" all her skating dresses since she was little, so she was fully versed in the blinging (also known as "stoning") process. She and I took a trip to our local craft store and bought a bunch of crystals to stone my dress.
I spent under $30 for all the stones and borrowed the heat gun from K, so my total investment (besides the dress) was minimal. It took a few hours to get everything the way I wanted, but I think it looks pretty awesome. I won't offer a tutorial here, but my skating friend Sarah recently posted instructions on how she stoned her skating dress (she used glue, whereas I used hot fix stones).
And because I want to keep the final product (and my program) a surprise until competition day, here is just a small section of what my dress looks like.
I'll show you the final dress after the competition. It is super sparkly!
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