My Own Swarovski Phone Case

My friend Katie has always been a Swarovski crystal inspiration to me, and this new project is no different.  We were emailing one day and she had mentioned that she blinged out her own phone case.  Of course, I got jealous and "HAD to have one too". She pointed me in the right direction of where i needed to get my supplies, and I was off!

Amazon is an amazing site.  I got the phone case and flatback crystals on there, and the glue at Michael's.  The toothpicks were in my cupboard.

Here was my shopping list:
144 20mm
144 16mm
144 12mm
144 9mm
E6000 Glue
Toothpicks
Clear phone case

I did the outside border of the case in the 16mm stones, then ran out shortly after I got to this point:

Lame. So I ordered another 144, and also got 75 6mm's to fill in some of the smaller spaces I found.  It's also nice that I have extra just in case I need to replace any.

Here's how I did it: I squirted some glue onto a piece of cardboard and used a toothpick to smear it on the case. My plan was to place at least 5 stones on at a time before having to add more glue...that didn't happen.  My glue dried SUPER quick and I could only get 2 on before I had to add more.  There are special wax tip tools you can buy to help place your stones, but I just used my free fingernails to pick them up.  The amount of glue you use is important too....try not to put on so much that it pushes up the sides of the stones, but enough that it holds them on.  I finished this a month ago (on 4/24) and I've only lost 1 stone that I still haven't glued back on (I'm lazy).

Let's be honest, this project sucked.  It took me around 5 hours to complete, and a very sore back from being bent over my kitchen counter.  I know I could've gotten it done quicker if I hadn't been dealing with small children stealing my stones, running between my legs and pulling on me constantly.  My mom called it theraputic...I called it a pain in the ass.

Do I love my case?  Yes.  I put a lot of time and effort into it!!  Will I ever make another one?  You better believe it.  I want to try one with all small stones, and probably a lighter color.  I love the purple, but it's qretty dark and doesn't sparkle as much as I wish it did. 

Before I took on this endevor, I did price out the ones for sale on Etsy and Amazon.....I would say start to finish, my case cost me about $70 to make, and I was finding them online for $75++.  The super fancy ones run like $350!!  Maybe someday.....

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