bedazzling Boots with crystal gems

Do You know How Many Crystals You Need to Rhinestone Boots?

Don’t you just love bedazzled boots? Yet, sparkly footwear can put a serious dent in your budget, costing you hundreds of dollars. However, you can bejewel and save yourself a bundle of money. But how many will you need to cover the area of the boots you are embellishing? Ugh! You were never good at math and have no idea where to begin.
​

The Math needed to determine how many rhinestones needed for Rhinestone Boots

Once you’ve got your boots, you need to pick out your rhinestone size. Most likely, a larger size crystal will work best, perhaps 20ss. 

Hark back to your Geometry lessons, as they’re going to come in handy. First, you need to figure out the area of the boot that will be covered in flatback gems. To figure out the area of a square or rectangle, you multiply the length by the height. So, let’s say you want to glue rhinestones to a rectangular area that measures 3 x 4. The area of this would be 12 square inches.
​
Rhinestones are available in different sizes, so depending on what size you choose will affect how many you need. Of course, the larger the bedazzling jewel, the less you need to cover 1 square inch. Likewise, the smaller the crysyal, the more you need to cover 1 square inch.
​

For your convenience, here are the most common rhinestone sizes and the amount needed to cover 1 square inch:

12ss – 67.14 rhinestones
16ss – 42.41 rhinestones
20ss – 29.20 rhinestones
30ss -  15.68 rhinestones

Obviously, you can’t glue on .14 of a crystal gem. To compensate, you can leave some space between the stones when gluing. Or you can shrink the area to be embellished to cover a slightly smaller area.
​
Remember, those numbers above will cover 1 square inch, but you have 12 square inches you want to cover. 

Simply multiply the number of square inches you want to cover by the number of rhinestones in one square inch. In other words, using our example of 20ss crystals: 29.20 (the number of gems per square inch) x 12 (the area to be covered) = 350.40 bedazzling jewels. And to continue with our example of boots, this would cover only 1 boot. Multiply the number by 2 to find the number of rhinestones needed to cover both boots.

Finding Areas of Odd Shapes

Simple right? Of course, the problem gets slightly more difficult when dealing with odd shapes. When confronted with these shapes, try to break the larger shape into smaller, simpler shapes. Then find the area of these smaller shapes.

Take, for example, this trapezoid shape above. How do you find the area of it?  We can break it down into a square and 2 triangles. Now we can find the area of the square, then the two triangles and add the totals together. (On the occasion that you forgot your geometry lessons, the area of a triangle is ½ the base times the height). 

Do you need crystal rhinestones for your project? Rhinestones Etc. has competitive pricing and excellent customer service. Discover the perfect size and color when you explore our store.