Template material for hot fix rhinestones?

I have seen some heat resistant stencils made to use with hot fix rhinestones and wands. I don't want to buy pre-made templates. Rather, I want to buy the material they are using. Does anyone know what it is called and where I might buy some? All I see for sale is the sticky mylar stuff which would be a big problem using with paper or card stock because it needs to be used on the background material sticky side down.

I just made my very first card and I liked the results using hot fix rhinestones for lettering. I bonded fabric to card stock so I could use the sticky mylar stuff. However, I would prefer to have a practical option to do hot fix rhinestone lettering and designs on paper or card stock. It doesn't seem to me like to would take much more time to make a template than it was to get all those itty-bitty rhinestones put in place on the sticky mylar.

maybe quilting template material?

Thanks so much for the suggestion.

I tried using some clear stencil material as well as a thin translucent pastry mat. Neither melt when ironed. I used a Dremel with a small drill bit to drill holes in both materials. What a nasty mess! The edges of the holes I drilled were all jagged and sticking both above and below the material.

Both a paper and grommet punch do perfect holes but I don't know if I can find sizes that will work with 2mm (.079") and 3mm (.118") hot fix rhinestones.

what about using parchment paper? Didn't even think of that! You can use a cropadile maybe for the holes? I don't know. I think the smaller hole is 1/8" which makes it .125" which is to big.

Thank you for the good idea, but the drill bit makes an even worse mess of the parchment paper than it did with the pastry mat and stencil material.

The hole I need to punch needs to be a smidge bigger than the rhinestones as they aren't absolutely identical in size nor are they perfectly round. I found an inexpensive revolving punch plier online that makes holes ranging in size from 2mm, 2.5mm, 3.0mm, 3.5mm, 4mm, 5mm (5/64", 3/32", 7/64", 1/8", 5/32", 3/16". I"m going to try to see if I can find one locally to try before buying. The arm isn't very long but I was mostly wanting to do patterns for lettering where that shouldn't be much of an issue.

let me know how it works. Sounds like a great idea!

I buy the rhinestones that already have the glue on them. Then I can use my wand and place them anywhere on anything! I use them on cardstock, shoe rubber & shoe canvas, t-shirt material, etc. You name it!! Easy peasy. For patterns, I have a Quickutz Silhouette. They have TONS of rhinestone patterns available online & I just print them out on paper. Then I use a disappearing ink pen w/ them. I use a sharp tool from Making Memories (I've had it forever but I think thats the brand) - its just a metal pencil like rod w/ a think metal SHARP pointed tip. This is what I pierce the paper w/ and then my disappearing ink pen will bleed thru the little hole, leaving a mark on whatever I want the design on.

I love some bling! I hope this helps.

I was wanting to do the stencils for letters/desings which will be reused enough times to make it worth making one. I haven't been able to find rotating punch pliers locally so I've ordered them online. That said, I'm not optimistic that they will be able to make clean enough cuts to make templates. I'll post back if I have any success.

It's been my experience my BeJeweler Pro wand isn't at all a practical solution doing the extremely closely spaced rhinestones I've been using in my patterns. The width of the collar on the wand tip that goes around the rhinestones to hold them is way too thick.

As a matter of personal taste, I don't much care for most patterns that would work well with a wand. I've used a vector-based graphics program to design my own patterns and print them directly on the cardstock.

The sticky mylar sheets sold for doing hot fix rhinestone patters worked reasonably well for doing closely spaced rhinestones on fabric but no joy for paper as it has to be applied sticky side down. I've been using a toothpick to apply Judy Kins Diamond Glaze (adhesive) to apply the the 2mm and 3mm rhinestones to the cardstock. I use as little glue as possible to just hold the rhinestones in place. The glueing process is fiddly but effective. To finish I put the card with the rhinestones between two layers of muslin and press with my iron set on wool to activate the rhinestone hot glue.

Hi, you can purchase the stencil film at Michaels. You might want to view the download files of alphabets, etc. on our site. These work with the stencil film or transfer pen. Hope this helps, Lucia / creativecrystal.com

We make the BeJeweler - you can place the crystals as close as you want with the BeJeweler. Place the first crystal as usual, then angle the tip and sliding the second crystal up next to the first one. Continue like that. Easier than it may sound! Lucia / Creative Crystal

crcrystal, Thanks for the helpful suggestion about tipping the BeJeweler. That works quite well for the 3mm rhinestones. However, it's a bit difficult for me to get accurate placement of the little 2mm devils. Maybe more practice will help.

Also, thank you for pointing out your alphabets and mentioning the stencil film. I already have some of the sticky mylar material but was looking to do something similar to your Crystal Style templates in a translucent material for my own designs that I will use more than once. I prefer doing my own designs because I can size them for what I need.

Only the 2mm and 2.5 mm sizes work well using the revolving plier punch (General Revolving Punch) I ordered. The 3mm and larger sizes won't completely punch out either the stencil material nor the translucent pastry mat. Also, the punch arm is only an inch and a quarter which would severely limit the size pattern one could make.

However, it was very easy to place the 2mm hotfix rhinestones in the 2mm punched holes so I decided to soldier on in search of something that would work for the 3mm size and for larger patterns. Google turned up a hammer punch tool that has 2 mm, 2.5mm, 3mm, 3.5mm,4mm and 5mm bits so I ordered it. It's coming from an individual in Canada so I have my fingers crossed it will be shipped and will do the trick. I will post back my results if and when the hammer punch set comes.

cool- thanks for keeping me up on this.