Want to make your face painting designs sparkle without using messy glitter glue? ✨
In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to make your own professional face painting gem clusters at home using double-sided body tape. They are quick to prepare, inexpensive to make, easy to store in your face painting kit and best of all, there’s no glue and no drying time!
These beautiful face painting bling clusters are perfect for adding a spectacular finishing touch to butterfly face painting, princess designs, festival face painting, flowers, swirls and many other face painting designs.
If you’ve ever tried making gem clusters using glitter glue, you’ll know that it can involve several steps and then you have to wait for the glue to dry.
When you’re a professional face painter working at children’s parties, festivals or events, time is incredibly important. You want to create beautiful designs quickly while still giving your customers that special, professional finish.
That’s why I love making face painting gem clusters with double-sided body tape.
You can prepare your bling clusters before your event, store them safely in your kit and then simply peel off the backing when you’re ready to apply them.
No glue. No mess. No waiting. Just sparkle! 💎
A face painting gem cluster is a small arrangement of decorative gems, rhinestones, pearls or diamantes that are grouped together to create a larger decorative feature.
Rather than applying individual gems one at a time to the face, you can create a pre-made gem cluster that can be applied as one piece.
This is particularly useful when you’re working quickly at parties and events.
A well-designed face painting bling cluster can become the centrepiece of your design and instantly make a simple face painting design look much more elaborate.
You don’t need a huge collection of specialist equipment to make these.
Here’s what I use:
One of my favourite tips for making professional-looking face painting gem clusters is to use different sizes and shapes.
Try combining:
Mixing different shapes and sizes creates much more interesting face painting bling than using gems that are all identical.
Tweezers work really well, and I particularly like curved tweezers for picking up and positioning small gems.
But I also use a simple little gem-picking tool that you can find in nail art and beauty supply shops.
Here’s my little hack: add a tiny piece of Blu Tack to the end of the tool.
The Blu Tack becomes slightly sticky, allowing you to pick up individual gems and position them exactly where you want them.
It’s a simple trick, but it can make arranging tiny gems much easier.
Start by cutting a small piece of your double-sided body tape.
For my clusters, I like to cut a simple V shape into the tape.
The exact shape doesn’t need to be perfect. Once the cluster is applied to the skin and surrounded by a beautiful face painting design, you won’t notice tiny imperfections in the tape.
The important thing is to create a shape that gives you enough surface area to arrange your gems.
Here’s one of my favourite little tricks for working faster at events.
Once you’ve separated the adhesive from the backing, create a small folded or creased section at the edge of the backing.
This gives you a little peel tab.
Why is this useful?
When you’re standing at a busy children’s party with your face painting kit in front of you, the last thing you want to do is spend ages trying to separate a tiny piece of backing paper from the adhesive.
With the little tab already prepared, you can simply grab it, peel the backing away and apply your finished gem cluster to the skin.
It’s a tiny preparation step that can save you a surprising amount of time.
Before placing your gems onto the adhesive, I recommend laying out your design first.
This is especially helpful when you’re working with lots of tiny gems.
Try arranging your main statement gem first and then build the smaller gems around it.
You can experiment with:
Large gem + small diamantes
Pearl + silver rhinestones
Flower gem + teardrops
Heart gem + surrounding diamantes
Planning the arrangement first means you can see what looks best before committing the gems to the adhesive.
Now it’s time for the fun part!
Place the gems onto the adhesive side of the double-sided tape.
For larger gems, I like to place only part of the gem onto the adhesive when appropriate, depending on the design and the size of the piece.
For smaller gems, your tweezers or Blu Tack-tipped tool will make positioning much easier.
As you work, press each gem firmly onto the adhesive to make sure it is securely attached.
Build your cluster from the centre outwards, adding smaller gems and decorative details around your main piece.
Once your gem clusters are finished, keep them in a small container with a lid.
I love using little bead and craft storage containers because you can create lots of different clusters and keep them organised.
You can even make different styles for different face painting designs.
For example, you could have:
Having them prepared before your event means you can quickly grab the perfect one from your face painting kit when you need it.
One of my favourite ways to use these face painting gem clusters is as the centrepiece of butterfly designs.
Butterfly face painting already looks beautiful with colourful wings, flowers and line work, but adding a cluster of sparkling gems in the centre can take the design to another level.
You can also place smaller clusters around the wings or alongside curls and swirls.
The sparkle catches the light beautifully and gives the finished face paint that extra wow factor.
If you’re face painting professionally, you’re constantly looking for ways to make your designs faster, easier and more impressive.
Pre-made gem clusters tick all three boxes.
Instead of arranging individual gems on the face during a busy event, you can prepare your clusters beforehand.
There’s no glitter glue to spill, smear or accidentally get onto your face painting supplies.
This is one of the biggest advantages.
Your cluster is ready to use as soon as you’ve made it.
You can purchase bags or containers of gems relatively inexpensively and create lots of different combinations.
A carefully designed gem cluster can make even a relatively simple face painting design look much more detailed and luxurious.
You don’t need to cover the entire face with glitter and gems to create an impressive design.
Sometimes one carefully positioned bling cluster is all you need.
Think of it as the finishing touch.
For example, you could create a simple butterfly design and add one beautiful cluster in the centre.
Or paint a few elegant curls around the eyes and finish the design with a small pearl and diamante cluster.
The key is to use the bling strategically rather than simply adding as much as possible.
If you’re a professional face painter, I’d definitely recommend spending a little time before your next busy weekend preparing a selection of ready-to-use face painting gem clusters.
You could sit down with your gems, put on your favourite music and create a whole collection at once.
Then, when you’re working at a party, you have a little box of ready-made sparkle sitting in your kit.
Simply choose your cluster, peel off the backing and apply it to the design.
It’s such a simple face painting hack, but it can make a huge difference to your workflow.
I’ve created a step-by-step video showing exactly how I make these professional face painting gem clusters, including how I cut the tape, arrange the gems and prepare the clusters so they’re easy to apply at parties and events.
Watch the full tutorial here: https://youtu.be/sPia9lhDbmY?si=V6jWogK2kicTDY_X
I hope this inspires you to experiment with your own face painting bling, rhinestones, pearls and gems.
Once you start making them, you’ll probably find yourself creating all sorts of different combinations!
✨ Have fun, get creative and add some sparkle to your face painting! 💎
If you’re new to face painting or want to improve your skills, I’ve also created a Complete Face Painting Course designed to take you through the essential techniques step by step.
You’ll learn the same fundamental face painting techniques I use when working at real parties and events.
🎨 Grab my 5 FREE Step-by-Step Face Painting Lessons here: 5 Free Step by Step Face Painting Lessons Learn to Face Paint Course
Yes! This tutorial shows how to make face painting gem clusters without glitter glue by using double-sided body or fashion tape. This means you don’t have to wait for glue to dry before using your bling.
Absolutely. Butterfly face painting and gem clusters are a fantastic combination. A sparkling cluster can be used as a centrepiece between the butterfly wings or alongside curls, flowers and decorative details.
They can be very cost-effective. Once you purchase a selection of gems, diamantes and pearls, you can create many different clusters from the same supplies.
Yes. Making your clusters before a party or event means you can keep them ready in your face painting kit and quickly apply them when needed.
You can experiment with many different decorative gems, including rhinestones, diamantes, pearls, teardrops, hearts, flowers and other flat decorative gems. Mixing different shapes, colours and sizes creates interesting and unique designs.
Prepare the cluster on double-sided body-safe adhesive tape, leaving the protective backing in place until you’re ready to use it. When you’re ready to apply it, peel away the backing and position the cluster according to the adhesive manufacturer’s directions.
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