Ornaments of a samba costume; shapes and sizes and sparkle beyond all

After you have designed your costume and started out with the structures and decided if you want to financially bankrupt yourself to the full or even more (meaning do you use sequins or go the extra mile and use rhinestones - or better yet, crystals), it´s time to decide the shapes.

Usually, and in the simplest manner, the samba costume consists of shapes.

In this costume, the shape is round. The round rhinestones have been placed on a soft foam sheet or on vinyl leather or felt fabric - or at least those are the materials I have been using. The shape of the stone is copied and enlarged by the number of rhinestone trim used around the stone.

In this costume, the stones are trimmed 1 to 3 times with different types of rhinestone trims each. Usually at least the last round (the outer rim) is made with clear crystals (or if you are using ball chain trim, gold or silver). This helps for the shapes to stand out more.

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However, in the beginning, this is all you have: the stones here are so called sugar stones in white and pink, the crystal trim is clear. The lycra fabric on the bottom is pink to match the feathers and the overall colour scheme of the costume. The Lycra is sewn on to the soft foam shape from the other side. For the sewing, I always use fishing thread because it is durable and due to being translucent/clear, always the right colour, too.

Once the shapes are ready (for one costume you will need anything from 50 to 300 pieces) you can start placing them onto the bases. Here the nude coloured strip is a belt base which has not been covered with lycra yet. The material is vinyl leather. The pink base is the necklace where I used soft foam to create the desired shape, sew the lycra on top and placed and sew the shapes on top of everything. (Later on I added more crystals and beads)

Later on, the belt looked like this. The shapes are sewn in, as well as some plastic based rhinestone trim (the only version you should use on the parts of the belt that jiggle; this will not ruin your stockings!). I have also added crystals in AB and fuchsia.

Here I have used hot fix crystals in clear and AB, some sew on crystals, sequin fabric and sequin trim.

And here we have another shape, in AB crystal, trimmed with clear rhinestones and, at this stage, attached to the head piece with pins.

The nice things about using shapes is that you do not have to have an absolute clear vision (up to the very last detail that is) from the beginning. You are able to place the shapes and try them out little by little. The result is visually quite classy and simple.

Once you get more confident, you can elaborate the shapes.

Or ditch the shapes completely.

All photos by me or from my Pinterest account.