Hotfix crystals/rhinestuds

[momomizu]

So....I bought some beautiful blue rhinestuds from http://www.hotfixcrystals.com/files/crystals.htm.  It's 1 gross of 4mm size. I decided to decorate my skate laces with them, but the seam of my laces was too melted to use. I took some pyramid studs off of one of my belts and they work wonderfully to hold them together, then i hotfixed the rhinestuds on the ends. Here's pictures for better clarification:  the first two are my right and left boots and the last one: I decided, since my soles are PVC(I have Riedell TS 133s), maybe I could hotfix the crystals into the sole. After a bit of trial and error, I found I had to push down on them with the iron so they would melt into the plastic. I like the end result. ^___^ They wont come out, but I haven't skated with them on yet.

[momomizu]

Picture 1 is the sides of the soles that I crystaled:
Picture 2 is the bag of crystals:

[davincisop]

How'd you manage the dark purple laces??? I've been dying laces and can't get the color to stay in, when I have to wash them out they end up washing out to a pale color...

[momomizu]

I found those  laces at the dollar store. I bought 2 packs which gave me 4 separate laces. i cut the ends and used an old hair pressing comb(the kind you had to heat on the stove) to melt them together. unfortunately, it doesn't hold that well  , which the studs helped to fix. If I had a few extra dollars I could've just bought agelets and put the two ends together like that.
The laces are a bit short, so tying a proper bow after lacing is near impossible. I might buy one more pack and add to the ends. I still haven't gotten a chance to skate in them yet to see how the laces and crystals hold up in action.

About dyeing laces, could you try letting the resulting pale colored laces completely dry, then try redyeing them to see if you get a darker color? You might have to do it multiple times to acheive the desired color. I've never dyed anything before, so I'm not sure if this would work or not. What type of dye do you use?